The campaign to reopen Peckham’s buried lido has been imaginative, inspirational and something that brought the community together. It’s fantastic to see the target smashed this week.
With the benefit of hindsight, the closing of our lidos seems like such short-termism. In the week that people marked the 150th birthday of Ada Salter, who, along with her husband pioneered healthy living for poor constituents in this part of the city, it’s fitting that such a plan to bring back a facility that encourages active, outdoor living has realised its objective.
Of course lidos also faded in popularity after the cost of foreign travel plummeted and more and more people chose to go abroad in the summer. Perhaps, post Brexit and with a heatwave upon us, we can glimpse the glorious future??Staying put all summer, lounging at the lido? There are worse ways to pass the summer, after all.
Congratulations to all those who got this idea off the ground – and good luck to them in their quest to turn it into a reality in the months ahead.