Diary of an MP: Why I'm campaigning for the return of Northampton’s lido

Ask people what Northampton's missing and you'll get a long list. But one answer comes up far more often than I expected when I was first elected. We should have a lido.

We did have one. Midsummer Meadow, open from 1908 until 1983, is a car park now. Every time I mention it someone tells me the water was freezing, or that they learned to swim there, or that they were sent down on a Saturday with a towel and told not to come back until teatime. Forty miles down the Nene, Peterborough still has theirs. Still open, still busy every summer. I don't think we should settle for being a town that used to have one.

So I've started a petition asking for a proper assessment of the case. Where it could go, what it would cost to build and to run, and who would deliver it.

I spent most of my career in construction before I came to Parliament, and the difference between a good idea and a project that actually gets built is the work you do at the start. Nobody hands a town a lido on the strength of nostalgia alone.

It isn't really about swimming. A lido is one of the few places left where a family can spend a whole day out without it costing a fortune. It's somewhere for teenagers that isn't a screen or park. It's somewhere people can swim a few lengths in their seventies and have a natter afterwards with the same faces every week. We've lost a lot of places like that, and you tend to only notice their value once they're gone.

I can't build a by lido myself. What I can do is make the argument, and arguments need something behind them. Every summer people tell me they'd use one. The council and the Government won't act on that unless they can see it written down.

If you want Northampton’s Lido back, sign my petition. Add your name at change.org/NorthamptonLido. If you've already signed, pass it on to someone else who would. A neighbour, a mate, your mum who swam at the Middy before it shut. The more names on it, the harder it is to wave away.

As always, if there's anything else you'd like my help with, my office is on hand to support at: [email protected].