'My fear is parking charges will wipe out opportunity to swim for children'

A flagship city swimming club which trains generations of swimmers is appealing to SAFC to reconsider its new parking charges

- by Katy Wheeler

As reported in the Echo earlier this month, parking charges for non-match days will be introduced at all Stadium of Light car parks from Tuesday, August 26.

People will be able to use the car parks for free for up to two hours, however, for anyone parking over that time, tariffs priced from £4 will be in place.

Parking Tariffs (from August 26): 0-2 Hours: Free; 2-4 Hours: £4; 4-8 Hours: £8; 24 Hours: £10.

While the free period may be enough for many people using the gym facilities at the adjacent Aquatic Centre, it's a move that will heavily impact City of Sunderland ASC (COSASC) competitive swimming club.

The flagship club's athletes, who range from between eight to 20 years old, with a masters squad on top of that, train for a minimum of two hours each session, which means they will have to pay £30 a month for a season ticket to park regularly at their usual car park, which had previously been free to use on non-match days.

Chair of COSASC, Linda Reiling, says it's a move which will devastate the club, which has trained at the Aquatic Centre's 50m pool since it opened in 2008.