Yokehill: establishing a new open water swimming venue

Marathon swimmer and multi-ice miler, David Coleman discovers having a lake to swim in is just the beginning of a process to make it swimmable

There are several new open water swimming venues that have been established throughout the country over the past 12 months. Northamptonshire alone now has over half a dozen excellent open water swimming venues. Setting up a new venue may seem relatively straightforward. Have a lake – will swim. However, it is never as straight forward as that. To establish a successful venue, a number of factors must be considered.

Does the venue require planning permission? Is the venue easily accessible? Is the water quality of a high enough standard and the venue safe to swim in? Is the surrounding environment suitable for numbers of people to park and access the water? Are there lifeguards available locally? How many members of staff will be needed? What safety equipment is required? Where and how will the venue be marketed? What insurance and public liability is required? How much does this all cost? These questions need to be addressed before even considering establishing an open water swimming venue.

In May 2025, Steve and Emma Smith took on the challenge of opening a new swimming venue at Yokehill, nestled in the beautiful Northamptonshire countryside between the villages of Weldon and Upper Benefield, when they purchased the house and farm buildings next to a well-established but redundant fishing lake. Seeing the opportunity and potential, the beautiful lake was soon established as an open water swimming venue and became an extension of the wellbeing centre already set up by Emma on the site. Fortunately, most of the infrastructures were already in place, including a large on-site car park and café.

Very quickly the lake became a popular swimming venue, but with growth comes new considerations. I was asked if I would become involved to help streamline its operating procedures and highlight future developmental ideas as I had experience establishing and running another larger open water swimming venue in Northamptonshire.

As winter was approaching it seemed an opportune time to highlight the benefits of cold water swimming. We hosted a very successful cold water swimming seminar and a winter swimming programme was initiated, which proved to be very popular as it enabled people to swim throughout the cold months without the pressure of having to achieve preset distance targets. As I have a wide experience of cold water swimming I made myself available every Saturday at noon for people to come and experience open water swimming in the winter. A sauna was moved onto the side of the lake and has proved to be a popular addition. Many swimmers comment on the safe environment and appreciate the individual attention they receive.

Yokehill’s ethos is to give people the opportunity to experience open water swimming in a lovely natural, relaxed environment. The swimming lake is very safe and each swimming session is supervised by a fully trained qualified open water lifeguard. The atmosphere promotes a feeling of calm and tranquillity surrounded by nature. As Steve says, “We are not as big as many of the other venues in the county, so we pride ourselves on individual attention as our sessions are limited to 12 swimmers to avoid the feeling of being overcrowded whilst in the water. We get to know our swimmers, and they appreciate the family atmosphere that we promote and provide.”

Emma also uses the lake for a variety of wellbeing sessions with the moonlight swims proving to be very welcomed and popular. One of the major innovations this spring has been the introduction of carefully supervised organised night swimming sessions to enable Channel solo and relay swimmers the opportunity to become accustomed to swimming in the dark. The layout of the lake enables lifeguards to closely always supervise swimmers in the water.

There is still tremendous potential at Yokehill in the form of a bigger, yet unused lake, which will be developed for open water swimming in due course. This will be ideal for swimmers who want to experience a longer distance swimming experience. Steve and Emma are keen to continually improve the swimming experience but are letting the business grow organically and naturally. A summer swimming scheme for people wishing to achieve personal goals has been introduced as well as a sold out summer solstice event, which will include an overnight camping experience as well as the joy of being in the water as the sun rises.

The success and tremendous impact that Yokehill has made in its first 12 months saw it named ‘New Tourism Business of the Year’ in the Northamptonshire Tourism Business Awards. Emma and Steve are very proud of this achievement as they see it as a recognition of the services that they are providing for the local community.

Find out more: yokehillleisure.com