New Leisure centre in Letterkenny, and the closing of the old one

Civilian_Target

Following on from the Donegal election thread, I ended up reading Damien Blake's article on the closing of the old Letterkenny Leisure Centre. Being a former Swilly Seal, I'll be kinda sad to see it go, despite the fact that it desperately needed an overhaul, even then. What worries me more though, is that the new pool is now right at the edge of the town. The high road was a nice central location - I used to often walk up to Hawthorn Heights, get some breakfast and then walk to school in St. Eunans in the morning after swimming, but the only obvious way (unless some sort of very cheap bus service is provided) of getting to the new pool is to cycle.

And while I'd have happily cycled without a second thought to the new pool when I was 16, now that I'm older and wiser I'd be less enthusiastic to do so, given the driving style of your average Donegal motorist. Can someone elaborate on how the council plans to make the pool accessible to those of us who don't drive, or the people whose parents won't be giving them a lift? (They're the people who need the pool the most, by the way!)

smashey

Isn't there going to be a new town bus service in the near future? Will it take in that area?

bettlebrox

Civilian_Target wrote:

I ended up reading Damien Blake's article on the closing of the old Letterkenny Leisure Centre.

He has some pics of the center on his Flickr page:
http://flickr.com/photos/damienblake/sets/72157600225599747/
It's an impressive looking facility, plus they have a skateboard park! Be nice if they had something for the skateboarders in Donegal Town, it would keep them off the Four Masters monument on the Diamond.

Civilian_Target wrote:

but the only obvious way (unless some sort of very cheap bus service is provided) of getting to the new pool is to cycle.

I think that's the face of modern Ireland, everything is geared towards those with cars.

Damien Blake

Civilian_Target wrote:

Can someone elaborate on how the council plans to make the pool accessible to those of us who don't drive, or the people whose parents won't be giving them a lift? (They're the people who need the pool the most, by the way!)

CT, the sports centre will fall on Route 1 of the new Town Bus route. I've mentioned it on my site beforee here. It highlights three stops in Ballymacool, with the routes now being finalised. We're hoping to see the bus up and running in the next few weeks; the operator is now workiing with the Gardai to finalise the exact locations for all the stops. We had, of course, hoped the bus would be operational before the election. That won't happen, but it won't be far behind.

On another front, a topic I've been working on is the provision of cycling facilities in the town. I've had motions passed to see lanes included on new projects, and to see older roads adapted to accomodate cycling. I've always pushed the Public Services Centre, the IT and the Sports Centre as the areas we need to focus on. The council will be undertaken works over the coming months on the road to the Sports Centre, and I'm hopeful a proper marked lane will be included. It's a County Council road, and I'm only a member of the Town Council, so I can't guarantee it will happen. But I will try!

Civilian_Target

An hourly bus service?! What a waste of time, that's clearly the vision of people with cars. Anything less frequent than 20 minutes is a waste of time (take a look at the British Dept. of Transport 1998 White Paper). Unless such a route has departures at specific times eg. end of school day, it's as good as useless. It would be much more useful to simply have one high frequency route, every 15 minutes.

If would expect the effort at cycle lanes in Letterkenny to be of similar standard to the rest of the country, they might as well not exist. As they say in Amsterdam, what's the point in building a cycle lane if you're not going to make it safe enough that you'd let your children cycle in it. And that means lanes segregated from traffic by a kerb.

shayser

My 64 year-old mum lives alone, close to the hospital. She hasn't her own transport. Her weekly routine for the past years has been shopping twice a week and swimming twice a week. The moving of the pool to its new location has upset things for her. It might as well be in Dublin. I hope for her sake that the bus service will be considerate of those in her situation or those in similar situations. I hope it is well planned as a fully functional and integrated social service. Will it tie in will swimming session times? Will the bus schedule mean hours in town for an hours swimming? Will she be priced out of her only activity with an increased admission fee to the pool and the bus fares? I hope it will be done right. I hope the fantastic new amenity will be equally accessible to everybody.

Civilian_Target

Thats a good point actually, one of the great things about the old leisure centre was that it was pretty cheap to get a swim. How much will prices increase for the new one?

shayser

First casualty of the move - no childrens' summer camp this year. Anyone know if there will be back, or is is permanently gone? The Community Centre is adding additonal places, so that's not so bad, on the face of it.

K-9

shayser wrote:

First casualty of the move - no childrens' summer camp this year. Anyone know if there will be back, or is is permanently gone? The Community Centre is adding additonal places, so that's not so bad, on the face of it.

Good point. I hope our council has thought of this?

Seriously, would Damien Blake know the position on this?

Damien Blake

Seanies32 wrote:

Good point. I hope our council has thought of this?

Seriously, would Damien Blake know the position on this?

We have been told that the proposed new management company intend to run these kind of camps again this year. The new centre is due to be opened in the last week of June, so there will be nothing stopping them running kids summer camps. Indeed, given the new facilities available at the new Sports Centre, the camps should be better than ever out there.

The Town Council members were due to meet with the reps from Aura at 6pm last night, but that meeting was cancelled at around 5pm as the reps from Aura where not able to make it. That meeting will now be held in the coming weeks, before the centre opens. The pricing for the new centre will be discussed then; it falls to the councillors to agree the pricing at the new centre, same as at the old centre.

Civilian_Target

Does that mean the old leisure centre management is now out of a job?

redtom

Is there a new road being built out the to the new centre? That road out through Ballymacool aint built to handle any amount of traffic...

hi-fi

Took the kids the day after the pool opened, went around 10am to avoid the crowds. We were charged €29.50-yes €29.50 for one adult + 4 kids and one hat ! We have membership in one of the local hotels but went along to the new leisure centre because the kids were mad to get on the slides. After we got into the water we asked about the slides and were told that they don't open them until 2pm. No attenmpt is made to pre-inform customers that this is the case.
When we were leaving I queried the price and got a refund of €2.10 when I asked what the problem was regarding the slides, I was told that it would cost an extra €200.00 a day to open them in the mornings! The entrance fee is the same all day so as far as I can see people who visit in the morning are subsidising the cost of running the slides in the evenings.
I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or what but things like this really rattle me these days, seems that a lot of places think they can give sub-standard service but still charge through the nose for it.
Over all it wasn't very enjoyable and we won't be going again.

Civilian_Target

€30's pretty steep given you've only got one adult! (How much was the hat?!)
In fact, I'm surprised they made you buy a hat, most new pools can cope without them, certainly my local pool in London doesn't require you to wear one!

It really sounds a bit crap, private places in Dublin generally don't even charge more than €7 a visit, you can get an adult ticket to the National Aquatic Centre for less than a tenner and there's a lot more to see there!