Six councils in England have decided to offer free swimming to children and young people as part of the government's £140m (US$227.4m, 152.2m euro) free swimming initiative.

This will be in addition to existing schemes benefiting only older people. The move follows a government announcement in August that up to £1m (US$1.62m, 1.08m euro) of unallocated funding from within the overall £140m package was being set aside to pay for new councils to join the scheme, and existing ones to extend it to young people.

The councils concerned are Barnet, Broxtowe, East Hampshire, Mansfield, Plymouth and Reading, with a seventh - Surrey Heath - taking part for the first time and offering the scheme to both age groups. This brings the number of local authorities offering the scheme to 260 for people over sixty, and 197 for young people. In addition, all the councils taking up the offer were entitled to apply for a share of a capital modernisation fund of £25m (US$40.6m, 27.2m euro) to build new pools, or renovate existing ones, in 2010/11. Five applied - Barnet, East Hampshire, Plymouth, Reading and Surrey Heath.

The councils' decision to take up the government's offer was welcomed by Ben Bradshaw, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, one of the five Whitehall departments providing funding for the scheme. He said: "This is another huge vote of confidence in the free swimming initiative, which is proving to be a big success in pools in every corner of the country. It is attracting people, young and old, to have fun, and get active and healthy at the same time."