Planning a swimming pool in Berkshire — what the process really involves

For most people, a swimming pool is the largest thing they will ever build in a garden, and the first one they have ever built. That combination is what makes the planning feel daunting. The finished result is easy enough to picture: the water, the light coming off it, a summer that finally happens at home. The route there is the unfamiliar part.

Pools are where we started more than twenty years ago, and they are still the work we are best known for across Berkshire and Surrey. What follows is an honest walk through what the process actually involves, stage by stage, including the parts that often go unsaid.

Start with how you want to use it

Before anything is drawn, it helps to be clear about what the pool is for. A few lengths before work is a different pool from a shallow, sun-warmed place for young children to spend the summer, which is different again from a still sheet of water that finishes the view from the house. Depth, shape, position in the garden and the way it is heated all follow from that one answer, so it is worth thinking about early.

The survey comes first

Every serious pool starts with a proper look at the site. We check the ground, the access for machinery and materials, where services run, and how the garden falls. We also check where you stand on permissions. Many outdoor pools can be built under permitted development, but listed buildings, conservation areas and some plots need consent, and it is far better to know that at the beginning than to find out halfway through. Nothing gets designed until we understand what the site will and will not allow.

Design brings the pool and its surround together

With the survey done, the design pulls the pool together with everything around it. This is the part people tend to underestimate. A pool is not only the body of water. It is the paving you walk on, the planting that frames it, the lighting that lets you use it in the evening, and the plant room that keeps it all running out of sight. Because we landscape as well as build, all of that is drawn as one scheme rather than added afterwards by someone else. It is the reason our pools tend to sit in the garden rather than sit on top of it.

The build, and the weeks that feel heaviest

A pool is groundworks first, so the early weeks are the most disruptive by a distance. Excavation, machinery, deliveries and the forming of the shell all happen before there is anything pretty to look at. We plan the access carefully, protect the parts of the garden that are staying, and keep a tidy site, but there is no pretending this stage is quiet. What we can do is tell you what each week involves before it happens, so the disruption is expected rather than sprung on you. The same family and team run the job from the first visit to the last, so you are never handed between a salesperson and a crew who have never met.

Covers, landscaping and handover

As the water goes in, the garden comes back together. Paving, planting and lighting are finished, and a cover or enclosure is worth settling early rather than bolting on later: it keeps the water warmer and cleaner, keeps leaves and debris out, and puts a barrier between the water and small children and pets. When the work is done, we hand over with straightforward guidance on running and caring for the pool, and we are still here when a question comes up a season later.

A few things worth deciding early

Get these settled at the outset and the rest tends to run more calmly, because they shape everything that follows:

• how you will mainly use the pool, and who for
• roughly where in the garden it should sit, and what it should look out on
• whether you want a cover or an enclosure from the start
• how much of the surrounding garden you want handled in the same project

If you are not certain a full pool is the right call, it is worth comparing it honestly against a swim spa or a hot tub before you commit.

The short version

A pool rewards patience at the planning stage and precision underground, where you never see the work but always feel the difference. Settle the use, the site and the surround early, and the rest of the process has a way of looking after itself.

If you are weighing up a pool for your own garden, our swimming pools and spas page shows the full range, and you are welcome to talk it through with us whenever the time is right.