Billie’s Fins Swim School in Pinchbeck says children take longer to reach the required standard post-Covid

A swimming school says youngsters take longer to reach swimming standard than they used to pre-Covid.

Billie Whyatt, who runs Billie’s Fins Swim School in Pinchbeck says the cost of living crisis has also seen numbers drop.

“It has quietened down,” she said. “After Covid there was a huge boom and things have steadied.

“The cost of living has definitely had an impact, so we have seen a difference due to the cost of living, for sure.

“We’re still busy and still have good numbers but we have been impacted.

“Before Covid the standards were completely different and we’ve noticed it’s taken children a lot longer to get to the standards they were before Covid as they’ve had such a break.

“Our pool was shut for 18 months and we’re seeing that now, that’s where the statistics come from.”

However, it’s never too late to learn to swim, as is evident at Billie’s Fins.

“We take babies from three months and teach all ages, we do a lot of adults as well.

“We’ve recently had a pool hoist installed for those with limited mobility and we’ve just got new clients coming in that aren’t able to access the pool by the stairs, so that’s been great.

“We have seen a huge influx of adults as well which is interesting.

”Its amazing, pretty rewarding when an adult comes. They cant swim, a lot who come to us, and thee might have had atraumatic experience.

“It’s a huge hurdle for somebody to come and say ‘I need to swim, so that’s been really rewarding.”