A LIDO which has received millions in funding will not open in time for this summer.

Saltdean Lido will not be ready for this season but campaigners have announced an ambitious community share scheme to complete their dream of reopening the historic venue.

The Saltdean Lido Community Interest Company has said they have decided not to open the pool this summer because the funding they have won is allowing for major work to be done sooner than expected.

This means the temporary improvements that would have helped them open this year have been cancelled.

And they are hoping to raise £1 million through a community share offer when it is launched later this summer.

The share offer will build on the almost £8 million in grants organisers have secured for the project so far.

The CIC’s director Rebecca Crook told The Argus the group had now had second thoughts on opening the facility’s swimming pool this summer in favour of getting on with vital refurbishment work.

Building work to replace the lido’s creaking plant room began on Monday and is expected to take up to three months while restoring the 40 metre pool is expected to take about nine months.

The pool will open with temporary changing rooms next summer while work converting the main lido building is carried out in time for what is hoped will be a 2017 opening.

Original plans to patch up the existing main pool for this summer have been scrapped because of the high costs of temporary improvements to the pools which would then have to be replaced.

The lido will still host a number of events this summer away from the water’s edge, including three nights of the Duke of York’s pop-up cinema and a production of David Walliams’ Mr Stink, both in June.

The CIC is still looking to raise £2 million which the Heritage Lottery Fund has said must be in place before they release their promised £4.8 million grant.

And the group is awaiting responses over other grant applications to other bodies.

The share scheme is set to be launched in August or September and will offer both residents and businesses the opportunity to buy community shares in the project.

Ms Crook points to the success of similar schemes which has seen Exeter Street Hall raise £200,000, Hastings Pier £590,000 and FC Manchester more than £2 million.

She said: “Community share experts think we can raise a lot more than £1 million but it’s a nice round number.

“We constantly get people saying ‘when can we give you our money’ and we have to tell them not just yet.”

She said: “Opening this summer would have meant we couldn’t start to do all the work for the heated water until the end of the summer.

“Instead when we open the pool next year it will be all bells and whistles with the heated water which will be much better for people using it.

“I think it’s really positive that work has started, people can see now something is happening.”