The swimming pool at a leisure centre in Bury has been limited to lessons only due to a national chlorine shortage.

The pool at Castle Leisure Centre on Bolton Street has been forced to stop its other sessions until further notice due to a nationwide shortage of the chemical.

The council confirmed that usage of the pool has been temporarily limited to swimming lessons only.

In a statement, the local authority said: “Due to a national shortage of sodium hypochlorite, we must temporarily limit swimming at Castle Leisure Centre to swimming lessons only.

“This means that, public swimming sessions will not be available until further notice.

“Please be assured that we are doing everything we can to replenish our supplies as quickly as possible but there is a national shortage impacting pools across the country.

“We apologise for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding at this difficult time.

“We will update this message a soon as we can.

“If we were to keep the pool open for all swimmers our limited supply of chemicals would quickly run out and the pool would have to be closed within a couple of days.

By limiting the number of swimmers in the pool, our chemical supplies will go further and will hopefully last until our supplies can be replenished.”

The council has advised that both Radcliffe Pool and Ramsbottom pool remain open to public swimming sessions as both use a different chemical currently unaffected by supply chain issues.

It told residents to book swimming sessions online in advance before travelling to the pool to swim to avoid disappointment.

The shortage is linked to a number of issues effecting global supply chains include a backlog in production and supply from China due to covid-19, transportation issues and a fire in a chemical plant in the US in 2020.