Plans to create an outdoor swimming pool at the Béco canal dock in the north of Brussels (near Tour & Taxis) have dragged on for years. Now, the Brussels-Capital Region has been urged to drop its feasibility study and let private Finnish investors build the project.
There is a high demand for open-air swimming in Brussels, but local MEP Pascal Smet (Vooruit) stressed that the current financial situation of the Capital Region will not allow for the pool to be built with public money.
"It is almost certain that no additional public funds will be found in the next 10 years to realise this open-air swimming pool as a public project," said Smet in a letter. But he added that this "does not have to mean the end" of an outdoor swimming pool in the Brussels canal.
Budgetary context
In December, the new municipal council of the City of Brussels confirmed its commitment to the outdoor pool. Additionally Beliris – the partnership between the Federal Government and the Brussels-Capital Region – has the tender for the feasibility study of an outdoor swimming pool in the Brussels Canal ready.
It is allocating €1 million for this but Smet has now asked the competent Minister Karine Lalieux to stop the tender, given the financial situation of the Region and the Federal Government.
Smet proposes an alternative solution based on meetings he held with Finnish investors two years ago when he was Brussels State Secretary for international relations and urban planning. The Finnish company is active in the industry of outdoor pools in Scandinavia. Smet says "They are convinced of the feasibility of their project and still want to invest in a swimming pool."
"Everyone knows that I have been in favour of building an outdoor swimming pool for 20 years. Pending new negotiations with this external partner, I think it would be better not to allocate the study for the time being, or at least to suspend it."
An architectural illustration of how the open-air swimming pool would look, according to previous proposals. Credit: KIS Studio - Sweco.
"This is a matter of good management but also gives the best chance of having an outdoor swimming pool in Brussels as soon as possible together with Finnish investors," Smet maintained.
For Vooruit.brussels, the other projects to swim outdoors must also be continued and pushed to completion more quickly. Compared to other big cities, Brussels is acutely lacking in outdoor swimming facilities. Amsterdam, for instance, has eight open-air swimming facilities; Helsinki has three; Prague has six; Vienna has ten; Paris nine; and Berlin has no fewer than 26.
Brussels has firmed up on plans to enable swimming in a pond in Neerpede and to create a swimming complex on the roof of Manufacture at the Abattoir site in Anderlecht, a public-private initiative that has already been costed and cleared.
