CAMPAIGNERS are celebrating after the announcement that the fun pool at the town’s Sovereign Centre is reopening, following months of closure.
Under the watchful eye of local man Joseph Rham from GLL, who grew up visiting the Sovereign Centre, a number of essential changes are being made behind the scenes and throughout the centre with the aim of getting customers back through the doors from Saturday 5th April, when the fun pool reopens.
GLL is the largest UK-based charitable social enterprise delivering leisure, health and community services. The company will be bringing its extensive experience to Eastbourne to ensure the centre becomes the hub of the community again.
The company will be investing a minimum of £1million over the next three years in collaboration with Eastbourne Borough Council. A special event on April 5th will see the official reopening of the fun pool which is being welcomed by residents throughout the area.
Editor Paul Gibson talks to Joseph, Customer and Communities Director from GLL, about the reopening and to find out how the new agreement secures the future of the popular venue…
The last few months have been a very challenging time for the authorities and residents following the closure of the fun pool — what has been the greatest challenge?
We’ve had to do quite a lot in a little space of time, there’s actually nothing that has been overly difficult. Eastbourne Borough Council have been very good to work with, but we’ve generally been working at pace to get things running again.
Normally, you would allow about 12 months in terms of going through the whole mobilisation and agreeing to processes, for example, and that has been condensed down to around a couple of months. The good news is, it’s all gone well.
The main objective is to deliver a seamless transfer from a customer perspective. We are now having customer communications going out and other bits and pieces, so hopefully, it’s a seamless process.
When you reopen the pool this month, what key differences will residents see?
We’re trying to make an impact because we’re conscious that the public knows the pool has been shut, and we want customers to come back to the centre, that’s obviously key to the business plan.
Hopefully, customers don’t notice any changes to the daily operations, that would be our main aim in terms of direct debits, the transfer of memberships, the centre programme and the activities available. The programme is not changing significantly, there are a few tweaks around the programme when we reopen the fun pool, but all that is favourable towards the customer.
We are uplifting some of the prices for new customers across memberships and some of the activities, but we’ll have that on the website. That is just the reality of moving the centre forward to making it sustainable.
GLL was approached to make sure we support people, with the right price for the right person, and people’s individual needs. Hopefully, people don’t find them too significant, we don’t think they are, but predominantly, those areas would be the main changes.
You’ve announced that you’ll be investing one million pounds in the centre, what is that money being spent on and over what period?
Unfortunately, a lot of the ‘unseen’ items need investing in to keep the building running. Behind the scenes, we will be making sure we’ve got robust systems that won’t break down.
What we are also going to do is have a refresh around the centre throughout key customer areas, new I.T systems as part of the transfer and then we’re looking to give the gym a small uplift.
Over the course of the next couple of months we’re replacing all of the cardio equipment in the gym. We’re investing in the latest state-of-the-art equipment and will be doing some other work around that area, as it’s a bit tired at the moment.
There are also some customer-facing areas that just need a little bit of attention in terms of cleaning up, regrouting etc, but they are things that make a difference to people when they visit.
We won’t have all of those done on day one, it will probably be done over the course of the next few months, but we want to do it quickly so that people notice that difference.
How can residents be sure your investment will secure the future of the centre?
We want to be running the Sovereign Centre for the long term, there is obviously a discussion that needs to be had around what that future looks like and what investments are needed for the longer term.
GLL wants to be involved for the longer term and hopefully, this is the start of a good relationship, we believe that there’s a future in the centre there and that’s why we’re getting involved in the first place.
We hope that our initial investment and what we’re doing across the board will lead to that future discussion. We’ve got these priorities initially of getting the centre back up and running, encouraging people back, reopening the fun pool, and we want to collaborate on what that future looks like with the council, with residents and with community stakeholders.
What would your message be to any residents reading this article who have been affected by the closure?
We want as many people as possible to come back, enjoy the centre, spread the word that the fun pool is reopening, make it as busy as possible and then hopefully, we can start to think about what that future looks like.
That’s the biggest thing local people can do to support that vision.
