Our story
We opened Sea Lanes Brighton to the public in June 2023 and are the first brand-new public lido to be built in the UK since the 90s! Dubbed the National Open Water Swimming Centre, it’s the first new 50-metre lido built as a training pool for length swimming only. Privately funded by a passionate group of Brighton-based businesses and open water swimming enthusiasts, Sea Lanes Brighton is centred on physical wellbeing and environmental sustainability.
We support the lido with a commercial centre that includes health and fitness specialists, food and drinks providers, and a range of carbon neutral, modular units that provide flexible space for local, independent businesses. We believe business can be a huge force for good and we are happy to play our part in investing in our community.
Given our incredible location at the centre of the historic Maderia Drive on Brighton’s eastern seafront we have always been motivated to act as a steward of the existing environment and to galvanise the existing swimming culture and community in this great city. Sea Lanes has a “compliment not compete” approach so we have embraced and supported existing events, organisations and initiatives locally. For example:
- Brighton Swim Club and their annual Pier to Pier race which we have been able to work together to galvanise this historic event and set it up for many more years of success.
- Leave No Trace Sea Lanes supported their David Attenborough campaign “three for the sea” waste campaign and we partner on running monthly beach cleans for the area around Sea Lanes and we say thank you by providing pool space and access.
- Sea Lanes have partnered with South Downs Leisure, Brighton & Hove City Council and the RNLI to provide Swim Safe courses to local schools as well as supporting Brighton Surf Lifesaving Club to transition into their new home at Sea Lanes and grow.
Our advice
Sea Lanes has had a really unique and organic journey. We started with a pop-up which engaged the community, informed our vision and allowed us to experiment with the simple concept of “how do we get people to turn left at the Brighton Pier?”
We took a lot of inspiration from the historical development of Brighton as a sea swimming hub, the power of cold water and embraced the enhancement of local vegetated shingle habitats.
With this community building, and engagement running parallel to the development plans, we were able to meet, show and talk to a wide range of local stakeholders; Council departments, local swimming clubs, local businesses and those businesses establishing themselves within our pop-up environment and critically our current and future customers.
Along the way we definitely learnt that it is ok to upset a few people and make people feel something either way; that if you don’t ask you don’t get and if you are telling people something they might not like, to do so honestly, explain the rational and do it face to face (even if they don’t like the answer, they will respect you for the delivery method!).
At the time of development, there was not the necessary data available on the heat demand profile of an outside pool and the impact of the wind across the surface. So we undertook to install the systems required to capture the missing data we wish we had access to at the start, to inform future Sea Lanes site development and help how we run the site here in Brighton. It has taken nearly a year but I’m delighted to say we are almost there. This data monitoring enables us to understand the impact of our ‘fabric first’ approach to energy efficiency and to pinpoint exactly why the pool is currently using 60% less energy to heat than forecast.
Number of pool members
Annual swims (members/visitors – excluding club swimmers). How our members travel to visit us. kWh renewable energy produced on site. kWh used to heat the pool. M3 water used on site.
