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Heat from Aldershot Crematorium’s furnaces could be used to keep the water at Aldershot Lido warm, a meeting has heard.

Rushmoor Borough Council is trying to make the lido viable as it tries to deal with a £2.4m cut to the council’s government grant.

At a meeting of its leisure and youth panel on Monday, a councillor said using the crematorium’s furnaces to help heat the lido and the indoor Aldershot Swimming Pools Complex might be an option.

A council in Worcestershire made headlines in January when it became the first council in the country to do this.

At Monday’s meeting, Cllr Eric Neal said this had been discussed at Rushmoor in previous years during earlier efforts to make the lido more financially viable.

The crematorium and pools complex are both in Guildford Road, near Aldershot Park.

“It was considered by us in the past and for various reasons it wasn’t taken up,” he said. “I’d like to think in the strange times, we consider every option. We should be prepared to try any option to keep it open.”

The Worcestershire council expected to save £14,500 a year in heating bills with its plan.

Monday’s meeting heard the amount of money the council is paying means it is spending around £10 for every visitor it receives.

David Quirk, the council’s director of environment and community, told the councillors the lido’s popularity was seasonal and it was largely unused for eight months of the year.

Closing the lido is understood to have been one of the options presented to councillors in workshops on how the council could save money, which were held in January as it drew up its budget.

But opposition from councillors led them to decide against it and focus on looking at a new way of running it to keep it open.

At Monday’s meeting, the panel agreed to put together a special cross-party group to look into the options for “the way forward”.

Mr Quirk said the group would be looking at “maybe getting more community involvement” in the lido’s management.

DC Leisure, the company that runs the lido and pools complex, was originally going to be on the council’s team to help the special group look into the issue.

But councillors complained that the private company would have a vested interest in the group’s recommendations and so DC Leisure will be a consultee, rather than a full member, of the group.