And finally… wild as you like

Is ‘wild swimming’ still wild if you can also pre-book a sauna and there’s a nice landscaped 200-space car park?

Plans now lodged with City of York Council by Pool Bridge Farm outline proposals for 203 parking spaces to support its “wild swimming” operation.

The venue off Wheldrake Lane in Crockey Hill – around 10 minutes from York city centre – has an existing 70-space car park, which will be returned to a soft landscaping area as part of the proposals.

Advisor O’Neill Associates said that the masterplanning exercise is driven by the need to cater for increasing visitor numbers at the site, the desire to add to the wellness facilities on offer and to improve the overall user experience.

Pool Bridge, a 138-acre holding farmed by the Fletcher family since 1952, was originally an arable and grassland farm, but the family has diversified over the years and the site now accommodates five man-made lakes, a series of caravan pitches, a camping site and a café, alongside farming land.

The lakes were dug in the period from 1964 – 2008 and until 2022, had been used for coarse fishing with the most recent ‘Q Lake’ operating as a specimen carp lake. However, four of the lakes have since been repurposed for swimming, open 365 days per year, operating on either a booking system or pay-as-you swim basis.

The lakes are also used for paddle boarding and there are three mobile lakeside saunas.

All of this sounds brilliant, frankly, and all the very best of luck to Pool Bridge, buuuuuuut… it’s not really wild, is it?

What we seem to be dealing with here is a matter of semantics. Does ‘wild’ now just simply mean ‘outdoors’ rather than something that’s a bit edgy, with an air of “are we actually allowed to be here, doing this?”

It’s a bit like when marketers describe things as “punk” that aren’t very punk at all. Or some posh guys open an “NYC-style dive bar” that’s actually very polished.

A visitor attraction with a very good website detailing FAQs, merch, safety guidance and the rest of it is quite clearly a commercial operation, and seemingly a successful one given the expansion plans.

Fair play to Pool Bridge of course, the whole venue sounds a fantastic place to visit. The issue here is not with them. Do we just need a clearer definition of what constitutes “wild” in this day and age?

Maybe the government should put Susie Dent in charge of some sort of Words Taskforce to get on top of this crucial issue. One to ponder as we head into 2025.