The government has earmarked £140m towards providing free swimming for all at the country’s 1,600 public pools by the 2012 Olympics, part of a legacy plan for the Games aimed at getting two million more adults involved in sport.

The funds will be available to local authorities starting in 2009 for two years, with £80m provided to waive admission fees, and £60m for pool upkeep. Pool entrance fees will initially be scrapped for the country’s 10 million over-60s, but councils will also be encouraged to extend the offer to under-16s.

Local authorities that already provide some free form of swimming will be encouraged to extend their initiatives beyond the age groups already served. It is hoped that entrance fees will be waived at all public pools by 2012.

The fund will also support initiatives including free lessons for adults who cannot swim, and the introduction of swimming coordinators to maximise and sustain uptake. Details of how the plan will be delivered are to be finalised this summer.

The scheme is being funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Department of Health, Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department for Communities and Local Government.

“Offering free swimming is just the kind of imaginative action required to make us a more active nation by 2012. We have chosen swimming because it is universal. It is the perfect antidote to the couch potato culture,” said culture secretary Andy Burnham. “The pools are there, we now need to make sure that they are world class facilities and that people use them. My ambition is that by 2012 as many areas as possible open their public pools for free.”

Graham Farrant, chief executive of Leisure Connection, welcomed the plans and said the initiative would help make more people more active.

"This is really good news. Making swimming free will break down the barriers some people may feel exist between them and exercise.

He also sees leisure centres benefitting from the scheme long-term, despite the unavoidable drop in entry fees.

"Of course operators will lose some income from entrance fees, but it also enables centres to gain access to people who might want to return to the centres for other activities, such as gym classes."

Schemes to encourage walking and cycling are also present in the government’s legacy action plan for the Games, which has been published by Olympic minister Tessa Jowell.

Burnham also announced plans to create “a world-leading community sports structure” by revamping Sport England, the funding agency for grassroots sport. Bureaucracy will be reduced, leading to £20m in savings over the next three years that will go to community sport, the minister said.

The Guardian reported that Olympic officials at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting in Athens had privately expressed frustration over lack of progress on promises of a London Olympic legacy of sport participation, as a plan was first promised a year ago.

Liberal Democrat culture, media and sport spokesman Don Foster has claimed that plans for the programme have arrived too late, leaving the government with no hope of getting two million more adults involved in sport by 2012.