Sink or swim: the last days of King Edward’s pool

On 23 April this year, at 8.41am, South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue received a call from King Edward’s Swimming Pool in Broomhall. The employee on the other end of the line, trying to remain calm but audibly rattled, said the chlorine gas alarm was sounding and they were worried there might be a leak. 

Inhaling chlorine gas can kill in minutes if concentrations are high enough — it reacts with moisture in the lungs to form hydrochloric acid that burns the tissue away — so the response was immediate. Two fire engines and a hazardous materials unit raced to the building, donned protective breathing apparatus and swept the entire place. Fortunately, no chlorine gas was present. It was a false alarm.

But that doesn’t mean there was no harm done. While the early morning swimmers who had been evacuated from the building waited for the all-clear — wrapped in towels and dripping on the street — members of staff were having a serious think about their futures. Almost all of them decided those futures no longer included King Edward’s Swimming Pool. “It had been broken promise after broken promise," says one. “But the gas alarm was the final straw.”