Public swimming pools in England peaked in 2009 and have declined steadily since. As this coincides with the austerity program introduced by the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition, the dominant interpretation attributes the decline to fiscal retrenchment. We argue that this account is incomplete. The decline in active pools is also rooted in a sharp reduction in new openings at the turn of the century, which has produced a progressively ageing stock of facilities. As a result, the number of closures would likely have increased even in the absence of austerity. Empirically, we find no robust evidence that short-term reductions in central government transfers directly increase closure risk. However, structural fiscal conditions matter: districts with weaker revenue bases and greater reliance on central transfers are significantly more likely to experience pool closures. This pattern suggests that austerity effects are mediated by local fiscal capacity rather than operating uniformly across jurisdictions. Overall, the findings indicate that pool closures are driven less by annual funding fluctuations than by longer-term structural dynamics, including infrastructural ageing and unequal fiscal resilience across local authorities.