CHILDREN living close to the North Wales coast will benefit from free water safety lessons with help from Castle Green Homes.
Fins Swim School received £1,000 from the homebuilder’s Mission Green Prestatyn initiative linked to new homes being built at Sŵn y Môr on Gronant Road, to support the Swim Safe programme.
Lesley Wilde, from Fins Swim School, explained: “There’s been an 85% increase in the number of child drownings in England between 2019 and 2022, with 20 drownings occurring in 2019/20 compared with 37 in 2021/22. Swim Safe is a free programme that teaches children aged seven to 14 vital lifesaving skills should they find themselves in trouble around water. Last year we educated over 300 children and their families from Prestatyn, Rhyl and the surrounding area and beyond on how to survive should they fall into open water, teaching important in water survival skills and safety messages on how to avoid getting into trouble in the first place.”
The free water safety programme is due to return this summer.
Castle Green Homes sales director Sian Pitt said: “Water safety is an important life skill, particularly for those living near the coast. Supporting the Swim Safe initiative to help keep young people in North Wales safe fits well with the ethos of Mission Green, which aims to support health and wellbeing, along with sustainability and the environment.”
Mission Green Prestatyn is a voluntary scheme through which Castle Green has supported 11 good causes.
The other local projects to receive funding though the initiative were Big Pool Wood volunteers, Cosy Craft Club, Denbighshire Play Rangers, Friends of Coronation Gardens, Hedgehog Help Prestatyn, Helping Homeless North Wales, Little Explorers and Friends, Ysgol Clawdd Offa, Prestatyn in Bloom, and Ysgol Gronant.
The Mission Green funding is in addition to the community investment Castle Green will make under a Section 106 agreement signed during the planning process.
For more information about the new community taking shape at Sŵn y Môr see https://www.castlegreenhomes.uk/our-developments/north-wales/swn-y-mor .
