The recently reopened Leisure Suite at Share Centre, Lisnaskea RMG14
AFTER being devastated during last winter’s floods, the Share Discovery Village fitness suite has finally fully re-opened.
Share instructor Emma Charles said the facility, which is fully accessible to all in keeping with the centre’s ethos, fully reopened at the end of July, much to the delight of staff and users alike. The reopening comes after months of painstaking refurbishment and repair.
It was the second time in five years the facility had been hit by flood waters, however thankfully on this occasion the pool was as badly hit as in 2009/10, said Ms Charles.
“The repairs to the main swimming pool area were minor, our main problem was filtering the pool water which had been affected by algae from the floods,” she said. “Once this was achieved and we had everything cleared, we were able to reopen this area.
“Our main reception are, our gym and classroom, however, needed a good bit more attention. Our concrete floors had to be lifted and then re-layed. All woodwork, including our desk fittings, door skirting boards and articlaves had to be torn out and replace. Ceiling tiles had to be replaced due to condensation from the water, and we also had to have all the electrics rewired. After this we then had to redecorate.”
Ms Charles added: “It’s fantastic we’re now finally, fully open and accessible to everyone again. It is great to see all our customers back and, of course, to welcome all our new ones also. The day the floods came in was devastating for all staff involved. Not only is this our place of work, a majority of us use the facilities in our free time. It’s great to see it reopen and back to normal.”
Extending Share’s gratitude to all their regular members who continued to use the facilities, even while work was still ongoing, Ms Charles said they had seen even more users were continuing to return.
She added flood defence work was ongoing: “Since the previous floods in 2009/10, flood defences had been put in place and they did work to a certain extent. Our flood defences did a great job of keeping the water out, however it did come in through drains and skirting boards. When this happened we were able to use sump pumps to get the water out.
“We do plan to add more flood defences in the future, such as a wall, however this is costly and we have yet to raise the funds to allow us to do this.”
With regard the cost of the floods, Dave McGeoghan, finance manager, said: “As you can see, the refurbishment consisted of a complete refit of the leisure suite. The full rebuild has taken nearly six months to complete and this does not come cheaply. Share has been assisted by our insurance company both with the rebuild and also the loss of earnings associated with being closed for half the year.
“However, all this comes with definable impact to the cost of insurance premiums and the cover provided going forward. We have, as yet, received no additional support from the statutory agencies.”
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