This weekend a mass protest will be held to defend the right to swim.
The Outdoor Swimming Society has organised a mass trespass swim at Kinder Reservoir to defend the right to swim on Sunday the 28th of April. On their website where they are advertising the event they said: “We have the right to swim, and we must use it.
“In Scotland everyone has the right to access rivers and all other water bodies to swim and paddle in return for behaving responsibly, and this is what we need across the UK.”
The flyer being circulated to advertise the event encourages attendees to be thoughtful on how they get to Kinder Reservoir, and warns that gaining access to the water is via a steep, rocky and unstable shoreline.
The group are advertising the use of free protest signs to send out to swimmers who are unable to make it to the event, encouraging them to hold a similar ordeal at their local swimming spot. They are also encouraging them to share their protests online under #OutdoorSwimmingSociety, #GoNicePlacesDoNiceThings and #RightToRoam.
The event takes place after the 92nd anniversary of the mass trespass on Kinder Scout in 1932, a landmark event organised by Benny Rothman that paved the way to the passage of the National Parks legislation in 1949, and helped establish the Pennine Way.
The local village of Hayfield is hosting events on Saturday the 27th of April to celebrate this initial protest.
In a recent post on Facebook, Councillor Tom Hunt said: “We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the brave ramblers who set off from Manchester and Sheffield on that day in April 1932.
A commemorative plaque for the event can be found at the entrance to Sheffield City Hall.
Amid their call for the right to swim, the OSS have also called for accessible swimming for the disabled, saying that it is easy to make these modifications to improve access. Options include in the implementation of hand rail, access ramps or the implementation of disabled parking.
The Outdoor Swimming Society has held this protest every year since 2021. 2023 saw a turn out of nearly five hundred people as shown in this video featured on the OSS website, https://vimeo.com/884391485
