Freeze leisure centre prices for a year - with your library card!

Just came across this today and since I haven't seen it publicised much at all I thought other locals might  be interested in knowing.

Prices at Lewisham's leisure centres are due to rise on 1 April by 9% but if you have a valid Lewisham library card you can use the Fusion leisure centres at the old rates for a whole year! 

Full details are here - the main points are that your library card must be activated and working by 31 March in order to take advantage, and you must take it with you when you go to the leisure centre.

For some reason it only applies to the facilities managed by Fusion, so if Downham is your local leisure centre it seems you'll be expected to suck up the price rise.

Of course there's a rather sad irony about the fact that with all the library closures in Lewisham you'll probably get more use out of your library card for physical fitness than you will for mental stimulation.

Wavelengths redevelopment: turning up the heat

Exciting news: work has finally begun at Wavelengths to convert the old library space into a 'modern purpose-built health and fitness leisure centre'.

I'm sure those who use the gym will be delighted to know that they will soon have a myriad of new machines on which to run, cycle and row while watching TV; there's also new rooms for classes (much needed, who ever thought a strangely-shaped room full of pillars would serve as such?!) an 'indoor cycle studio' (room full of bikes for those who want to 'spin'), a new health suite with sauna and steam room, a cafe and a 'soft playroom' for kids.

Above you will see the rather unhelpful diagram that's included in the newsletter being given out at Wavelengths. Perhaps you think my words harsh, but not only is it difficult to tell how the plan above fits on the existing building, the decision to divide it into phasing also seems pointless considering that 'phase three' is now being carried out at the same time as 'phase one' while 'phase two' hasn't begun yet. Confused? You will be!

The fancy rendering above is helpful if you need to know exactly how the new machines are going to be laid out, likewise if you haven't ever seen the inside of a gym and aren't sure what people do in it, take a look at the 'fly through' video. Just don't expect to learn much about how the changes fit with the Wavelengths layout.


In the small print of the leaflet you might have missed the bit about the fun pool being closed - apparently they are carrying out 'essential refurbishment works' but there is scant information as to what this involves.

Will the flumes be brought back into use, or are they being taken out altogether to stop them gathering any more dust?

What about the plastic palm trees set in concrete - will these forlorn items remain after the refurb? Thankfully I haven't had to look at them since the fitness pool was built, but I presume they are still there, propping up the faded 80s vibe of the place.

But regular fitness pool swimmers can't have missed the immediate impact of this closure - the fact that the water in the fitness pool is now stifflingly hot. I thought I was imagining it, but it seems that other swimmers have been complaining it's too cold and so the temperature has been turned up.

Naturally we have to share the fitness pool while the leisure pool is closed for its mysterious three-month refurbishment but I don't understand why the temperature has to revert to that of the leisure pool during this time. Many people use the fitness pool for exercise or training, and it is way too hot to be able to keep up a good pace safely.

Of course it doesn't help that the showers are now once again resolutely cold - on my latest visit the contrast from the hot pool to the freezing showers made me feel like I was rolling in the snow after a Swedish sauna. Perhaps we need a few birch twigs to add to the experience.

Let's just hope that with more people using the pool the pressure might push the management to get those bloody showers fixed once and for all.

Wavelengths customer forum

Since Fusion Lifestyle took over the management of Deptford's Wavelengths leisure centre I've noticed some creeping improvements (improved cleanliness) and some things that are still the same (those damned cold showers in the fitness pool).

However even with the ongoing problems I've noticed attempts being made to investigate and hopefully solve the issues, which is a good sign as far as I'm concerned.

If you want to find out more, the new manager of the centre is holding a customer forum next Wednesday evening between about 6pm and 8pm. Apparently this is planned to be a regular event which will be repeated once a month or so, at different times of day and on different days, to give as many customers as possible the opportunity to raise issues and ask questions.

I understand that work on the showers is under way right now and hopefully some time soon we'll no longer have to trek to the leisure pool for a hot shower, or shiver as we wash our hair. Plans for the relocated and expanded gym are afoot, with dance studio and additional class space, and Fusion is also putting forward proposals to rip out the famous 'health suite' and replace it with new facilities.

Wavelengths response; good news for early morning swimmers?!

Further to my comments about the opening hours and availability of the 'training pool' at Wavelengths, centre manager Clare Motton was kind enough to reply via the noticeboard in the foyer.

I contacted her to ask for a copy of her response, and have reproduced it here.

***********

•Swimming pool availability:

The pool programme is designed to cater for the specific needs of different sections of the community as well as those that wish to participate in general swimming. There are four swimming pools within Lewisham and all pool programmes are balanced to ensure that public swimming is available within the borough at any one time.

Due to the diverse population within Deptford, the centre aims to provide sessions, which allow all residents to use the facility. Some sessions are particularly targeted at specific user groups, for example, ‘women only’. Without such sessions being specifically programmed, it is known that numerous customers would not be able to participate in swimming and therefore not benefit in the centre’s facilities.

•Session names:

We try to state the names of the clubs that hire the pool, within any publicity material. Further to feedback, programme names will be adjusted in our next re-print of the programme.

• Early opening:

The London Borough of Lewisham and Parkwood Leisure are currently in discussions as to the possibility of opening the centre from 6.30am on weekdays. We hope to have a decision in the near future.

• What is casual swimming?

Casual swimming is a session that allows any member of the public to swim without the restriction of lanes. This enables both non-swimmers and children to use the 25-metre pool. This session was created at the request of our customers and has proven very popular.

• Club hire:

At present club hire only uses 13% of the total pool programme, providing 87% for a range of alternative swimming pursuits. Club hire is invaluable for providing development of our swimmers who could potentially develop into the swimmers of the future.

*****

Naturally I was delighted to hear about the ongoing discussions with the council about opening the pool much earlier on weekdays. I know for a fact that Parkwood Leisure is very keen on the idea, acknowledging that it is guaranteed to boost the centre's membership numbers. Quite what the sticking points are and why the council is dragging its feet has never been fully explained to me. If anyone can shed light on the matter, please feel free to email me or leave a comment. Clare advised me that although discussions are still continuing, 'we are extremely hopeful of a positive outcome'.

If this could be achieved, it would also go a long way to improving availability for swimmers who live locally but work in London. I'm never going to change my mind about casual swimming sessions and I still think that there are too many exclusive sessions, but making more swimming hours available would be a huge boost.

As far as availability goes, there's very little merit in the response: 'There are four swimming pools within Lewisham and all pool programmes are balanced to ensure that public swimming is available within the borough at any one time'. Deptford is not in the centre of the borough, or even equidistant from several pools - it is stuck out in the north of the borough a long way from most of Lewisham council's facilities. While some people may have the choice between Wavelengths and Ladywell, there is a huge swathe of the catchment area who are closer to Greenwich or Southwark pools than they are to Parkwood's other centres. Offering us public swimming sessions that are miles away is pointless.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that the council pulls its finger out of wherever it is stuck and gets the ball rolling for earlier hours.

Wavelengths pool: access analysis

As a regular swimmer at the Wavelengths training pool, I am often frustrated by the restrictions placed on access to the pool. These range from the late weekday opening hours to the fact that the pool is often unavailable because it is being used by school groups, or that public users have to share it with swimming clubs or lessons.

When the pool first opened it was difficult to get hold of details of these restrictions, but requests to the management team resulted in the timetable shown above being made available on the Parkwood Leisure site as a pdf (or you can click on the picture for a bigger and more legible version).

As a matter of curiosity, I decided to do some analysis of the hours available to swimmers in the borough, and came up with some interesting results.

The first thing to notice from the timetable is how complicated it is and how many different sessions there are, some of which seem indistinguishable from others.

For instance, what is the difference between 'private hire', 'club hire' and 'Saxon Crown'? To the public swimmer they mean the same thing: 'not you'.

Why the need for so many sessions that exclude others? I'm talking about 'ladies only', 'men only', 'adults only', '50+ swim'.

And from a purely personal viewpoint, why so few hours for anyone who lives in the area but does not work in the area?

I have created a pie chart showing the division between public use of the pool and private use of the pool (including school hours). [For each one-hour session that is shared between for example Saxon Crown and 'lane swimming', I have assumed that half the pool is given over to each, and have allocated half an hour to each. This may not be totally accurate; I don't know if this is the case in all shared sessions, but it is the case in my experience.] Restricted hours refer to public sessions such as 'ladies only', 'men only' which may be available to you depending on your sex/age etc.



So what is available to those of us who live in the borough, contribute to council tax, but work elsewhere?

Assuming that you work a standard 9am - 5.30pm day, and hence have to leave before 8am to get to work and don't get home until about 6.30pm (trains willing), what swimming opportunities do you have?

Here we see a division of the sexes; in this case, women come off better than men! 'Ladies only' is a very generous three-hour session on a Tuesday night, while 'men only' is squeezed into one and a half hours on Sunday lunchtime.

To give a fair illustration I've made up these pie charts based on the hours available to this particular user group - 29.5 hours in total.

This shows that as a sector of the community we are very poorly served indeed, being able to use the pool for just HALF the time it is available to us outside of our working and travel hours (and assuming that we are happy to swim during the 'casual swim' on Saturday morning, which I am guessing means 'no lanes').




A few things for consideration - please feel free to offer any response or add your own opinions in the comments box:

- we were promised that the council was looking into earlier opening hours to address just this problem and to try to attract new members. There seems to have been no progress on this as yet, for reasons that have not been explained.

- 'training pool' is a bit of a misnomer; 'fitness pool' would be better. We are not all Olympic hopefuls; some of us just use swimming as our main form of exercise and need the opportunity to swim up and down the pool at our own speed for half an hour or so without interruption, two or three times a week. We'd like to be able to slot this around our work and home lives with as much flexibility as possible.

- why so many restricted sessions? And why the need for 'casual swimming' sessions? Isn't that what the Leisure Pool is for?

- club hire undoubtedly brings in valuable revenue, but it severely restricts the hours available to potential (paying) members too. I do not bother to take out membership since the hours available for me to use the training pool are so few.

Wavelengths customer forum

Just a reminder about the customer forum at Wavelengths leisure centre tomorrow evening, Thursday 11 Dec.

The manager, Clare Motton, will be available to answer questions and take your comments about the pool, gym, classes etc etc.

She will be available from 6pm onwards, however if, like me, you cannot get there until 7 or later you will probably miss her, unless the turnout is more than the half dozen who came to the last forum. She is more than happy to take feedback and answer queries by telephone, which I found out today.

As well as raising the issue of opening hours (which I fear is not going to change any time soon), I suggested that the weekly timetable for the fitness pool should be put on display. At the moment the timetable, which shows the availability of lanes throughout the day, is kept behind the reception desk. She took on board the fact that it would be more useful if it was visible, so that swimmers would have more information to help them plan their visit (recently I found myself sharing the pool with a local swimming club who had booked half of it for a three-hour block in the middle of Sunday). Of course it would be even more useful if this information was on the website so we could find out without having to go to the pool, but it's a start.

Finally I mentioned the showers, which have been cold on recent visits. Apparently someone was there (again) today, trying to fix them; like the opening hours it seems this could be a bigger problem than was originally envisaged.

Wavelengths pool opening hours and customer forum

If you have read my previous posts about Deptford's lovely new swimming pool, you will know that I am very happy with nearly all aspects of the facility - except for the opening hours.

Like the majority of the city's working population, my employment is based in central London and my work starts at 9am, which means leaving home at 8am at the very latest. I like to exercise before going to work, but having a swimming pool that doesn't open until 8am is of very little use to me. I only get to use it on my occasional days working at home (a luxury most people do not enjoy), or at the weekends. At least once a week I cycle to the Arches leisure centre in Greenwich, where the pool opens at 6.30am on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and 7am on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Believe me, the pool can be very busy at that time in the morning.

When Parkwood Leisure carried out its consultation about the new pool at Wavelengths, I encouraged people to fill in the survey and ask for earlier opening hours. Whether no-one bothered, or whether Parkwood Leisure ignored the feedback (or whether people simply didn't even know about the consultation - several regular users have told me this) I don't know, but when the new pool opened for business, it was with the old opening hours. Without exception, everyone I have spoken to on my occasional visits to the new pool wants the hours extended so that they can swim more frequently.

On my first visit, I filled in a customer comment card and asked about earlier opening hours. I am pleased to see that the management has given a response to this request via its noticeboard just inside the entrance. Apparently they are consulting with Lewisham Council about the viability of earlier opening hours and will report back with any news in due course.

Meanwhile, they are also advertising a customer forum for THURSDAY 11 DECEMBER which will be held at the leisure centre from 6pm onwards.

Please, please, please if you are at all interested in this issue, or of course if you have any other comments or feedback about the leisure centre, put this date in your diary and make sure your voice gets heard. I am convinced that if there is enough pressure for a change in hours, it will be difficult for the management to ignore.

If you can't make it on that date, please fill in a feedback form and put it in the box at the leisure centre (you will have to write your comments on the bottom of the form, there is no question about opening hours, they just want to know if you think the place is clean (yes) and the staff helpful (yes, very - sometimes despite difficult circumstances!).

I will try to find out more about who will be at the forum, how long it will go on for (let's face it, 6pm is just as impossible for central London employees as 8am!) and what format it will take, and will report back with any news.

Good news for flume fiends

After several years of being out of action, the flumes at the Wavelengths pool in Deptford are apparently going to be open for use again on 1 November! Who knows, I might even sneak in there myself when it's quiet!

Wavelengths Leisure Centre; new 25m pool

What better opportunity to try out the new pool than a rainy Sunday morning? So the Dame got her cossie and goggles and skipped off down to Wavelengths in a mood of eager anticipation.

The new pool ticks many of the right boxes for me as a keen swimmer, but it has a few major drawbacks which I hope are either teething problems, or which may change upon pressure from regular swimmers.

Firstly, the pool itself is a lovely size - it seemed even bigger with just four of us in there shortly after 9am. It's light and airy, very clean and smart as you would expect with a new facility, and a pleasure to use. As with the leisure pool, the lockers and showers are poolside, with male and female toilets leading off the pool area, and separate male and female changing areas.

But it's very hard to find! Even when you know roughly where it should be! There is a total lack of signs from the reception area - I assume this is just because they seem to have reopened in a hurry and haven't quite finished off yet. The changing rooms have signs saying 'group changing area' on the doors, with a small male or female sign below, which is much more confusing than it sounds (If you think I sound like I'm defending a blonde moment here, let me reiterate that EVERYONE was confused, not just me! I thought this was reserved for schools or something.) Get rid of the euphemisms and bring back 'men' and 'women' for crying out loud.

So, when you pass through the entry gate, turn immediately left along the corridor with the hairdryers in it. This is the 'grooming area' (which I think sounds incredibly dated, maybe even slightly sinister!). The male changing area is the first door on the right, the female is the second. There are cubicles along one wall and benches and hooks along the other - this is great, although the benches are along the same wall as the door into the unisex grooming area, leaving you rather exposed when anyone goes in or out of the door.

After changing, take your clothes and bags through into the poolside, where you will find a row of lovely big lockers with bright yellow key bracelets. You will need 50p, which is refundable - hallelujah!

There are shower cubicles as well as communal showers, which is excellent news. I hate showering in my costume - not only does it seem rather ineffectual as a washing process, but the hot water and soap accelerates the rotting process that the chlorine has on your swimming costume, which can have expensive consequences for regular swimmers. So it's great to be able to shower in private, then rinse your costume in the wash basins.

The showers stay on for ages at a time - this is excellent when you are trying to get the soap out of your hair and don't want to have to keep finding the button with your eyes shut, but might prove expensive on hot water. It's also a bit annoying when you have finished showering and want to put your towel round you and get out, but have to wait for the water to stop.

The pool is divided into three wide lanes - slow, medium and fast. The notices saying which is which, and showing the direction you should swim, are at the far end of the pool; a handicap for anyone who normally wears glasses. But I'm glad they went for plain english on this occasion - the Arches leisure centre in Greenwich prefers to divide us into 'plodders', 'joggers', and 'sprinters' as well as a 'front crawl only' lane. I have always thought this must be totally incomprehensible to anyone for whom English is not their first language and probably explains why people frequently use the wrong lane.

The water temperature is perfect for fitness swimming - on the cold side, which means you don't overheat when you are swimming at full pelt. I had been worried it might be too warm, as the leisure pool always seems tropical to me, although I know this is aimed as children so needs to be warmer.

So the facilities, overall, are excellent.

But - and this is a MAJOR but - the opening hours are still the same!!

You might recall my previous pleas about making the weekday opening hours of the new pool more sensible. You can see from this post that someone from Parkwood Leisure even commented and assured me that the message was received 'loud and clear'. I filled in the consultation form, sent it back with my comments and explanations, and hoped that something might change.

So when I bowled up this morning to ask what time the pool would open in the week, and was told it would be 8am - the same as before - I was gobsmacked. The receptionist's comment that 'you wouldn't get the staff to come in any earlier' was even more depressing.

It seems I am not alone. I mentioned my disappointment to the other swimmers I met, and three out of four of them said that they had wanted earlier hours too. I can only assume this pool is intended mainly for school use, with a few hours at the weekend for us locals. What is the point of opening a fitness pool at 8am on a weekday? Most people are on their way to work at this time. By contrast, the fitness pool at the Arches opens at 7am on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and 6.30am on Tuesday and Thursday. I usually go for the early swim, that way I can swim, change, get home for breakfast and then get to work in town for 9am. Another swimmer I know at the Arches travels from Brockley for her swim - she would love to use the pool at Deptford but, like me, can't fit it into her schedule.

So come on, Parkwood Leisure; now you've given us a lovely pool to use, give us the opportunity to use it regularly!

Breaking news...

Apparently the new pool is now open! Thanks Barry, for the tip off. I'll be along to spoil your solitude as soon as I can. All in the name of research, natch.

What's going on?

Deptford's swimmers are eagerly awaiting the opening of the new swimming pool at Wavelengths (and in fact the reopening of the rest of the centre too, which has been closed for far too long due to overrunning of the construction work).

But I am reliably informed that it will all be in use by the end of August. This photo suggests that at the very least, the new pool will be full! (that's the new leisure centre in the background, the pipe runs all the way from the standpipe and disappears into the building itself!)

Swimming pool consultation

If you would like to voice your opinions on the planned opening hours, etc, for the new pool at Wavelengths, click here to download the survey as a pdf.

You will need to print it out (only print the FIRST SIX pages, the rest are blank), fill it in and either hand it in at Wavelengths by the middle of February, or send it to Clare Motton, Centre Manager, Wavelengths Leisure Centre, Giffin Street, Deptford, London SE8 4RJ.

Deptford pool - latest news

From Lewisham Council's website, posted on 11 Dec: (apologies for any grammatical errors, they are not mine!)

"The works for the new pool remains on target in terms of practical completion. A defects period will then remain in force until 1.8.08 after which Parkwood Leisure will then take over and commission the facility with a view to opening the site for public use on or about 30th August 2008.

The contract build costs remain on budget. The build programme requires the facility to be closed twice. The first was to accommodate reorganisation of the foyer and took place from 1st to 26th April with as little inconvenience to the public as possible, and the second will take place from 3rd May to 20th August 2008, and this will be to join the new pool with the existing building. The opportunity will also be taken to carry out refurbishment works in the existing pool hall.

The creation of new offices and workspace within the library were completed on 4th July 2007. Works to form a mezzanine deck were found to be more intensive than originally envisaged, but in the main, the works did not cause any major problems to the continued day to day operation of the library or the services it offered.

Overall, the construction works have progressed significantly towards a watertight building, with the roof and internal blockwork walls and glazing to the Giffin Street façade now complete."

One thing I am concerned about is the planned opening hours. Currently the pool does not open until 8am for its 'early bird' swim. (These birds will never catch the worm if they stay in bed that late!). This combined with the fact that it's primarily aimed at kids (very warm water, funny shape pool) means I'm rarely seen in there.

Since I'm usually on a train heading for Waterloo East at 8am, I am keen to see the new pool operating more appropriate hours to offer access for early swimmers. I have to cycle to the Arches leisure centre in Greenwich to get a swim in the morning, and I know at least one other early morning swimmer who passes Wavelengths on her way to the Arches every morning in her car.

I have asked the council's leisure dept what opening hours are planned, but all they could tell me was that it had not yet been decided, and there would be consultation carried out before the pool is ready to open. So far no sign of any consultation either on the council's website or at the pool, and I'm finding it difficult to get any more response from the leisure department.

Please please please, if you are listening, make the morning hours more sensible! If you are serious about improving swimming provision in the borough (I'm trying to pretend that the Ladywell fiasco was an isolated case) then take the simple step of giving us the chance of an early morning dip!

Wavelengths progress

Take a look at these lovely glulam roof beams - while you still can! The roof of the new 25m pool in Deptford is up, I suspect it will soon be covered by some architectural equivalent of corrugated steel,and I'm not sure what length of the beams will remain visible when it is finished.

It's certainly cutting an impressive dash right now though - and making us all quite excited about the finished product.

New pool

I am a swimmer - it's my favourite method of keeping fit. I do a respectable backstroke, a rather strong breast-stroke and even taught myself a stylish front crawl a few years ago, since that part of my childhood swimming education had been sadly neglected.

So you would think I would be delighted to live just round the corner from Deptford's Wavelengths Leisure Centre. Harumph! Call that a pool? Not only is it a silly shape, the water far too warm and the swimming area blighted by huge slides (that are no longer in use as they are presumably unsafe) but the management's idea of an 'early bird' swim starts at 8am. At 8am I am usually on the train halfway into town.

Moreover, the 'lane-swimming' section is 12m long, the showers are communal and the changing area scruffy and dilapidated.

So you can appreciate that my visits to Wavelengths are confined to a weekly usage of the gym, although even this is rather patchy at the moment. The gym is Ohh Kay - at a push. Cheap and cheerful, and rather cramped if you get more than about five people in it. Meanwhile I'm still fascinated by the 'health suite' which contains sauna and steam room. On our 'induction' tour, myself and the Deptford Duke were warned that the behaviour of the health suite customers left a lot to be desired. There were even intimations that on Friday nights, said customers brought food in and cooked it on the heat of the sauna bricks, after which it was consumed. There was no explanation as to why these particular customers had not been evicted and their membership cards revoked. So it still holds a certain mystery cache to me.

But now, all is changing! Enter the plans for the new 25m pool; construction started in January and is forging ahead, if reports are to be believed! Whether or not the opening hours will be any more accommodating to those of us who have to travel some distance to work, remains to be seen. But it's a start. As long as it doesn't end up with a debacle like that at Ladywell, we should be ok.