A MAJORITY of Grange-over-Sands residents are in favour of restoring the town’s historic lido.

In a survey ahead of a Heritage Lottery application, more than 90 per cent people said they wanted to see the listed site given a new lease of life - with 73 per cent favouring recreating it as a lido.

The survey, run by South Lakeland District Council and Grange Town Council, asked people what they would like to happen on the site.

Of the 953 respondents, 73 per cent said ‘a lido’. Other popular suggestions included an on-site café (66 per cent ); an open-air performance venue (62 per cent ); a winter ice rink (62 per cent); and a heritage visitors’ centre (47 per cent).

Now residents can see more details of the proposals at a public exhibition at the nearby Victoria Hall, which will include key findings of the public consultation and the opportunity to vote on different scheme options.

SLDC and Grange Town Council are working closely with Neo Now and Partners on the project, expected to cost around £5m, and aim to submit a Stage 1 application for Heritage Lottery Funding by January next year.

Graham Vincent, SLDC’s portfolio holder for health and wellbeing, said: “This is a hugely important project. Bringing the lido back into public use will support our aims of increasing leisure participation in the whole district and improving the health and wellbeing of all our communities.”

Town and district councillor Tom Harvey said: “The early consultation has produced some fantastic results and ideas from all sectors of the community and we are now at the stage of boiling down those ideas to ones that are sustainable and achievable with the constraints of a Heritage Lottery Fund bid."