Better late than never. The London Fields Lido reopens tomorrow – more than six months after it was meant to.
When the Gazette visited today, divers were carrying out a last round of checks and finishing up the cleaning of the pool ready for the big day.
As if to prove the lido really was usable after so many delays, the council invited 20 members of its user group for an early morning swim.
“There are some signs around the pool asking users to send us any feedback or report issues,” said a council spokesman.
Cllr Jon Burke has apologised repeatedly for the late opening, which was meant to take place in summer, then “late summer”, then at the end of September. Then it was pushed back two further times.
The delays snowballed as the much-lauded refurb to fix the crumbly old tiles turned out to be shoddy and unsafe.
That, embarrassingly, was despite a lengthy tendering process that saw a 2016 closure announced and then scrapped when no one good enough could be found.
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