Aquatics Centre at John Charles Centre for Sport

A further visit at 7:30 on a Saturday morning enables me to add to my May, 2015 review. Although a strong club squad was occupying eight of the lanes, two were available for the general public. Although not designated as such, these effectively separated into one being used by heads-up breaststrokers and the other by the rest of us. Again, it was reasonably quiet with no more than four swimmers in each of the public lanes. A correction to my earlier review: there are a number of individual shower cubicles adjacent to the shared facility, so it is possible to get your swimming kit off when you freshen yourself for the rest of the day. Noticeably friendly staff - both at reception and at poolside.

Some distance from the City Centre, this facility, which was built to replace another, now sadly closed, 50 metre pool right in the heart of Leeds, was not planned with access by public transport in mind. If you haven't got an automobile or a bike to hand, you can get there by catching a bus from stop Z2 in Neville Street directly behind and almost underneath Leeds Railway Station. As you board, check with the driver that the bus is heading down the Dewsbury Road and ask to be put off at the Dewsbury Road Social Club stop. The journey from the centre will take eight minutes or so. From there, the John Charles Centre is about a 12 minute walk along Middleton Grove. When you reach a roundabout, you will find the pool on your left side and, hopefully, like me, you will find that the journey was well worth the effort.

Both shared and gender-specific changing facilities are available; shower facilities are all shared. Lockers require a £1 coin deposit, which is returned after use.

On my mid-morning, weekday visit the pool was fully laned for 50 metre lap swimming (check the timetable on the facility website before you go, because sometimes the pool is laned for 25 metre lap swimming). The 10 lanes available were not speed differentiated, so it was necessary to decide which lane would most easily accommodate my pace - not a difficult task because there were no more than 40 people in the pool the whole time that I was there and I was never sharing a lane with more than three others. This is an outstanding facility: I rapidly overcame the irritation occasioned by the need to go on such a trek to get there. Indeed, I enjoyed myself so much that I swam 1,500 metres: 500 metres more than my usual daily quota.

An outstanding pool: good temperature, clean, wide lanes, lots of lane swimming time, although it is sessionalised, so it's not open all day long for lane swimming. Midday to 3 PM weekdays is an excellent time to swim. Saturday mornings, forget it for the general public, but there is a very good coached adult squad from 7:30 - 9:30 AM. The only really bad thing (other than the sessionalisation) is that in the general lane swimming sessions there is no lane control, so you can arrive to find a pool full of head up breaststrokers. And they don't move! You might also be happily speeding along doing fly and still a head up breaststroker might join you. But just complain, pull the health and safety card (i.e., its dangerous for everyone...) and they might do something about it, one day.