Planning permission has been granted for Charlton Lido in Greenwich, London, to be redeveloped into an open-water scuba diving centre.

The project will be privately funded by leisure and residential development firm Open Waters and is expected to cost between £8m and £10m.

When complete, the four-storey dive centre will have a 22m-deep, 25m-dive pool, a gym, treatment rooms, exercise studios and a crèche. It will also include a restaurant, bar, conference facilities, and a sports retail area with a dive shop that will link with the lido. The lido will be refurbished and will retain all its current facilities.

“This offers us a unique opportunity to preserve Charlton Lido for future generations and put Greenwich on the map, offering a special diving centre which will attract divers from across the country,” said local councillor Vicky Morse.

The dive pool will have four submerged platforms for different levels of divers. Starting at one-metre, then four-metres for basic open-water skills, 12-metres and 20-metres.

Alexis Wheatley, the projects operations manager, says: “Training will be both to PADI and BSAC approved standards, and visitors will be able to complete try dives as novices as well as advancing to open water courses and beyond.

“Various features will be added to the dive pool to offer more challenging all year dive experience. This will include submerged ‘sets’ to give training for wreck-diving, as well as reefs for both photography and buoyancy training.”

Work is due to begin in 2009 and the development is expected to open in 2011.