About
A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR THE BATHS
Bath Brynaman holds deep cultural significance and strong collective memory within the community, and volunteers have been working for many years to find a way to refurbish and re-open it. Our aim is to sensitively refurbish this much-loved site – retaining its historic character and features such as the changing booths – while upgrading facilities to meet 21st century standards in accessibility, usability, and environmental performance.
Conscious of the climate emergency, renewable energy solutions will play a central role in extending the operational season and reducing our environmental footprint. Delivering a community-centred, inclusive and economically sustainable future for the Baths is key.
Our Story
Brynaman Lido Committee has led efforts since 2014 to secure the future of the Baths. Supported by Cwmpas we registered ‘Brynaman Lido Ltd’ as a charitable community benefit society with the Financial Conduct Authority (Reg No 8253) – a structure that allows us to attract grants and donations while working for the benefit of the community.
In March 2022 after much hard work and extensive discussions, Carmarthenshire County Council agreed in principle to the Asset Transfer of Brynaman Lido to our committee. This was an essential step as without a long lease or ownership we would be unable to progress our plans to refurbish and re-open.
Community Engagement
As well as all the research and business planning over the past few years, we’ve held lots of community activities and engagement sessions. These are essential to any publicly-funded project – helping us understand what the community wants and needs – and growing support for the Baths. From visits to other pools and lidos, to open days, to facilitated days on accessibility, ecology, wellbeing and outdoor swimming – to a very successful 2 day event in January 2026, on the Past, Present and Future of the Baths, attended by over 150 people – we’ve reached hundreds of people in the community through our events, engagement on our Facebook and Instagram pages, posters, flyers and articles in local newspapers like Y Gloman.
All the findings – memories, stories and people’s views on how the refurbished Baths should be, how it needs to work for the community – are essential to help us understand and demonstrate that the project to refurbish and re-open the Baths meets the needs of local residents. Our findings feed into the vision, funding bids and future business planning. We now have more followers than ever on our social media and in May 2026 we brought back the name the locals have always used – Bath Brynaman.
grant Funding
With dogged determination and a lot of hard work from volunteers we’ve been successful in winning a series of key grants in recent years – from the The National Lottery Community Fund to the Architectural Heritage Fund for outline feasibility and business planning work, and Community Foundation Wales, for help with day-today administration and insurance payments.
Local Support
We’re very grateful for support from local businesses – from Pristine Innovation Render Cleaning Services who helped us clean off graffiti, to the Sign Group Brynaman for a wonderful banner, to our neighbours, Brynaman Rugby Club for all their support. In 2026 Coaltown Coffee, a local socially-minded business chose the Baths as the backdrop for their Summer launch campaign. Ospreys famous winger and Wales rugby player Shane Williams has been a great supporter of our project, helping us host a consultation day at our favourite local Brynaman Public Hall Cinema and making a short film about our campaign.
2026: Welsh Government Grant
In 2026 we received a pivotal grant from Welsh Government to enable our project to refurbish the Baths to take a big step forward. Working with award-winning architects Rural Office, this grant has enabled us increase capacity and engage industry experts to inform the many elements involved in refurbishing a historic open-air pool and bringing it up to 21st century standards – with input on accessibility, engineering, sustainability and business planning. It also helped us with branding and marketing – successfully bringing back our name: ‘Bath Brynaman’ and getting a new otter logo and poster templates to help build support!
Our architects have been able to carefully assess the site and establish a clear architectural response aligned with our vision to reinstate and sensitively adapt the Baths. All the expert advice, with our community feedback, ideas and research have now been developed into a ‘Vision’: showing how the refurbished Baths might look and feel, how people will move through and use the site, its likely structure and design, materials and finish. This early-stage design or ‘concept’ work is an essential step prior to planning applications being submitted -and for funders too – helping demonstrate how the project meets community needs.
