The Links, Waves

Opened in March 1974. Whitley Bay Pool was designed by Gillinson Barnett and Partners. It cost £500,000. It was only the second freeform leisure pool to be built in Britain (the first was in Bletchley and opened a few weeks earlier). Leisure pools catered for those who wished to splash about for fun, rather than serious swimmers. These new pools were based on curvilinear forms, had slides, flumes and lagoons. Whitley Bay had a £15,000 wave machine and a simulated shore. The pool proved immensely popular. Whitley Bay has a twin pool at Rotherham designed by Peter Sargent of Gillinson Barnett. In 2007 a new structure was built over the existing pool, costing £6 million. It reopened in March 2009 as Waves, featuring a spa, slides and replica pirate ship.