Children were placed at risk yesterday with Sport England considering cutting funding to swimming after an 8 per cent drop in participation levels over the past year.

With 245,000 fewer people taking part in the sport, according to the latest Active People’s Survey, Sport England said they were concerned with the latest figures with a decision to cut funding to be taken in March.

However, with statistics from the National Water Safety Forum’s Water Incident Database showing that in 2013 0-19s accounted for 12 per cent of deaths (46), of which more than half were teenagers aged 15 to 19 (27), it is argued that there should be a larger focus on getting more kids into the pool and that a decrease in money could be detrimental to the safety of children.