HOT TOPIC
With swimming in rivers and lakes becoming ever more popular in Britain, we delve into the thorny issues of safety and legality.
One hot summer day, after a long walk along the northern escarpment of Kinder Scout, a friend and I stopped by a lake for a dip. Sticky with dust and sweat, we stripped down to our underwear and waded in. It was late in the season and the water swilling about our legs could barely be described as cool. I took a few steps in, tilted forward on my toes, and, stretching out my arms, slid into the water. The world of bright sunshine vanished into a dim, muted green-brown.
This was only one part of our day. A day made up of a stiff climb, a skyline traverse, and a long lunch break spread out on a giant gritstone boulder, eyes closed, baking in the sun. To slip into the water at the end felt as natural a part of it as stopping for lunch. To respond to hunger with food and to hot, aching muscles with the soothing caress of open water.
Yet it was the only part of the day that wasn’t, legally at least, permitted. The only part of the day for which we had to steel ourselves (however slightly, however subconsciously) against the notion that we were doing something wrong. The lake was a reservoir and, technically, we were trespassing.
Since then, there have been at least three official ‘wet trespasses’ on reservoirs in the Peak District – at Kinder reservoir commemorating the 1932 mass trespass this year and last, and at Agden in September – and countless thousands of unofficial ones. Go to Agden on any hot day in the summer and you’ll find the shore lined with towels, sunbathers and excited dogs, with inflatable canoes and SUPs bobbing further out, and people wading, swimming or paddling near the shallows. Occasionally, a more serious swimmer, generally marked by bright swim cap and attached float, takes a more direct line across the water. Swimming in the Peak District reservoirs isn’t allowed, but you wouldn’t know it.
There are very real practical reasons for this. An estimated 20 million people live within an hour of the National Park, which lies between Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester. And an estimated 13.25 million people visit every year. But this figure is from 2018. The real figure, post-pandemic, is likely to be even higher. There are 55 reservoirs in the National Park and only the scarcest scattering of lakes and ponds. Plus, as a relevant aside, almost 400 swimming pools in England have been closed since 2010. Not swimming in reservoirs would mean, for the large part, not swimming in the Peak District at all.
“I feel, particularly around reservoirs, that we should have a policy similar to France and most of the continent, which is that reservoirs are totally open for leisure pursuits and s
