WINSFORD Amateur Swimming Club are in celebratory mood this week after learning they have achieved a prestigious landmark.

The club, based at Winsford Swimming Pool, have been awarded Swim 21, a certification which shows they are operating in a professional and safe manner and are providing the necessary training facilities and links to enable their swimmers to improve and develop in the best possible way.

As part of the Swim 21 award, presented by the Amateur Swimming Association the club have also been handed ClubMark accreditation from Sport England.

This concentrates mainly on the way the club deal with youngsters, the opportunities for competition available to members and the ways in which the club provide a safe environment.

And crucially, ClubMark accreditation means Winsford ASC will be able to apply for grants handed out to grass roots clubs by Sport England.

Club chairman Barry Keeling spoke of his delight at gaining Swim 21 and ClubMark.

He said: "It's a great achievement for Winsford to be awarded Swim 21 certification.

"But we cannot rest now we have achieved this as we will be audited by the ASA every year to ensure we are still adhering to the guidlines."

And Winsford are certainly not resting on their laurels, with hopes to expand the club to help swimmers from a wider area.

Keeling added: "One of the main aims of Swim 21 is to help young swimmers develop and move on to bigger and better things, with the ultimate aim of producing national standard swimmers.

"Ideally we would like to start a performance group for the mid and south Cheshire area taking kids from the boroughs of Crewe and Nantwich, Congleton and Vale Royal."

For this to happen the area needs a 50 metre swimming pool.

But Keeling has no complaints with the facilities on offer at the moment.

He added: "Vale Royal Borough Council have been fantastic and we couldn't ask for a better working relationship.

"Years ago we struggled to get four hours of pool time a week, now we get more than 18 hours per week.

"To be honest that's probably the right number of hours, it's now a question of what we do in terms of coaching in that time."