Flow swimming pool stays open in September to make up for temporary summer closure

The open-air swimming pool Flow in the Brussels neighbourhood of Anderlecht will remain open for three days a week in September to make up for time lost to a temporary summer closure.

The pool was closed for a week and a half in July because the water quality did not meet its strict standards, Bruzz reports, with an old pipe that brings water to the pool determined to be the culprit.

While the pool was able to reopen in mid-July, rainy weather kept attendance lower than it would have been.

“Depending on the weather, 25 to 250 people a day came,” said organiser Paul Steinbrück.

For the month of September, which is expected to be sunny and warm, the pool will be open on weekends and Wednesdays.

“We want to make up for the false start of this year in this way,” Steinbrück added.

Whether the pool will close for a long time at the end of September remains to be seen, as the organisers are considering arranging winter swims.

“We used to work with a water filter that we had to rent and bring back at the end of the summer, but with our new natural water filter system, we can basically swim on any day of the year,” explained Steinbrück.

He stressed that although Flow was less crowded than last year as a result of the weather, the demand from Brussels residents for outdoor swimming is still high.

“On nice days, all the places were full – we often got reports that our reservation system would not work, because there were often no more available time slots,” Steinbrück said.

“But we only have 250 places per day, which is simply too few for 1.2 million Brussels residents. So the government still needs to come up with concrete and sustainable solutions.”

The outdoor swimming spot – now in its third year of operation – is the work of Pool is Cool, an organisation looking to create more opportunities for open-air swimming in the Belgian capital.