Understanding swimming provision: from county-wide baseline to investment scenarios

Before deciding where new swimming provision may be needed, it is important to have a clear picture of the network they already have.  The National Swimming Facility Planning Model for Ireland (FPM) developed by FMG, brings demand, capacity, accessibility and facility use together into a consistent evidence base, with scope for deeper analysis where needed. 

Planning swimming provision is not simply a question of counting pools or plotting them on a map.

A facility may exist within a county but still be difficult for parts of the population to reach. A pool with substantial water space may already be under pressure, while another nearby may have greater capacity. Residents may cross administrative boundaries to swim, while facilities within the county may also serve people from elsewhere.

In many cases, the first challenge is more basic: establishing a clear picture of the current situation. Where is swimming demand coming from? How much provision is available? Which facilities are under pressure? How accessible is the network, and where does demand remain unmet?

That is the starting point for FMG’s Swimming Facility Planning Model.

Building a baseline picture 

The Swimming Facility Planning Model, or FPM, brings together information about population and swimming demand, facility supply and capacity, accessibility, and how demand moves through the facility network.

Its baseline analysis answers fundamental questions about current provision.

At an area level, it estimates total swimming demand, how much is accommodated and how much remains unmet. At facility level, it examines effective capacity and predicted utilisation. It also considers the geography of the network, including facility catchments, accessibility, travel patterns and movement across administrative boundaries.

That baseline is valuable in its own right. Before considering a new pool, replacement facility or major refurbishment, there is value in first understanding what the existing network is doing and where pressures lie.

The model turns this analysis into a consistent standard report, bringing together headline findings, facility performance and spatial patterns in a form designed to support decision-making. Here are some examples from a report:

*Example FPM baseline report output, summarising supply, demand, cross-boundary flows and unmet demand. 

The same report also shows how these patterns vary spatially, helping identify where communities appear comparatively well or poorly served. 

*Example spatial output showing the estimated share of swimming demand not accommodated across the study area. 

How does the model work? 

The model follows a straightforward planning logic.

It first considers demand: where people live, their demographic profile and their propensity to swim.

It then considers supply: the pools available, their water space, opening arrangements and other facility characteristics.

Accessibility links the two. Travel-time information helps identify which facilities are realistically available to different communities and how people may travel to them.

Driving catchments across Ireland show the areas within 10, 20 and 30 minutes of swimming facilities, helping the model understand which parts of the network are realistically accessible to different communities. 

The model then looks at the network as a whole. Demand can be distributed between facilities, facilities can experience different levels of pressure, and some demand may remain unmet.

This matters because swimming facilities do not operate independently. People may have several possible pools available to them, and demand does not necessarily remain within a local authority boundary.

From the baseline to future scenarios 

Once the baseline has been established, the same model can test change.

A scenario might examine a new or replacement facility, a change to existing provision, a closure or refurbishment, or future population growth. The network is then modelled again and compared using the same measures, including unmet demand, facility utilisation, accessibility and wider network effects.

Rather than considering an investment simply in terms of the amount of new water space it adds, planners can therefore examine how it affects the wider network.

The Cork work provides an example of this approach in practice. The FPM was used alongside wider evidence to support long-term swimming facility planning across Cork City and County, including analysis of current and future demand and a public-only sensitivity.

The report is the core output, but not the limit 

The standard report is designed to provide a clear, repeatable picture of each model run. For many planning questions, that baseline or scenario report may provide the principal evidence required.

However, the underlying model results contain considerably more information than can sensibly be included in a standard report. Where there is a specific strategic question to investigate, those results can be explored further through bespoke analysis.

For example, FMG used the model as part of a wider evidence base for long-term swimming facility planning across Cork City and County. Alongside the standard model outputs, the underlying results were interrogated further to examine spatial patterns, compare future scenarios and understand how the effects of an intervention varied between different parts of the area.

Bespoke scenario analysis for Cork City and County, showing how a modelled closure-and-investment scenario changes unmet demand compared with the 2040 baseline, both overall and across subregions. 

This type of analysis can go beyond headline county-wide figures. It can help profile individual facilities and the demand they serve, examine catchments in greater detail, identify areas of comparatively weak provision, explore relationships between facilities, and compare how different interventions affect the wider network.

The distinction is important. The FPM is not simply an interactive map or a collection of datasets. Its core is a consistent modelling and reporting framework, with the flexibility to go deeper when the planning question requires it.

Supporting better-informed facility decisions

The purpose of the FPM is not to make investment decisions automatically. It is to provide a stronger, more consistent evidence base for those decisions.

It can help planners understand the existing network before considering change, compare future options on a common basis and, where necessary, investigate particular facilities, locations or patterns in greater depth.

That progression, from understanding the baseline, to testing interventions, to going deeper where needed, is central to how the model is intended to be used.

Find out more 

For related work using the same underlying national swimming pool evidence base, see Swim Ireland’s Swimming Pool Gap Analysis Report on its Infrastructure Hub. The Gap Analysis describes existing provision across Ireland, while the FPM builds on that evidence to explore demand, accessibility, capacity and network effects: https://swimireland.ie/infrastructure-hub/ 

For questions about the Swimming Facility Planning Model, its methodology, standard reports or additional analysis using the underlying results, contact Louis Thompson, Senior Data Scientist at FMG, who developed the model.

For commercial, financial or wider business enquiries, contact Kevin Godden.