Update of progress to re-open the Aquadome in Inverness
Following on from the fire which occurred in one of the plant rooms at Inverness Leisure on 13th September 2008, James Martin, General Manager at Inverness Leisure commented, “Works in relation to re-opening the pools are now well underway.
“The area where the fire took place has now been cleared of all fire debris and a full assessment of the area has been undertaken by the various contractors that will be involved in re-instating the many items of plant that were damaged by the fire.
Speaking further on the proposed re-opening of the pool facilities he continued, “As expected, the complexities involved in the works has regretfully resulted in us having to extend the potential opening times for the competition pool at the centre.
“Whilst the opening times projected for the Leisure waters still remains early in the New Year, we have been advised that it is now likely it will be towards the end of November before we are in a position to re-open the competition pool to clubs, groups, organisations and the general public.
“The task of emptying the pool is not as simple a process as one would think and it is made even more difficult when the pool also has a floating floor. The principle of the floating floor is exactly as it says, in that in its natural state it floats. So for this reason, it means divers have to go under the floor when the pool is full to put props in place before the water level is able to be dropped. The props are positioned to prevent further damage being caused to this massive pool floor expanse.
“However, in addition to the technical processes, we have actually been de-chlorinating the water as well to try and make it as environmentally neutral as possible before we put into the normal sewerage system.
Mr Martin went on, “As we will be dumping over 1,000,000 litres of water into the sewerage system, we also have to take into account the capacities of the actual drains around our facilities and will only release small amounts of water over the course of a number of days. On our calculations we will be dumping around quarter of million litres of water over a 24 hour period for about four days.
Speaking further on the re-opening dates, he continued, “With the refill, heating, treating and testing of the water taking even longer to do we are now estimating that, all going well, we will have the competition pool open by the end of November.
“What many people don’t appreciate is that in a swimming pool situation, the water in the pool is effectively structural and therefore removing the equivalent of 1,000 cubic metres of water can have an impact on the whole pool surround area. Hence the reason it has to be done in a very slow and controlled manner.
“We are hopeful that all goes well, but we are also professionally aware that problems can occur as the water level is dropped, this can include tiles dropping off to more serious structural damage to the pool tank as the mass of water is removed.
“I would therefore inform our customers that should the empty not go according to plan, even if it’s just some tiles dropping off – this could further delay the opening of the competition pool. However, obviously we will not know what the actual situation will be until the water dump commences.
During the closure period, our staff members have been redeployed to other areas of the building and Management at the facilities are using the opportunity to retrain some of their team in other areas of the centre. The team members who have had their place of work affected have also been utilising the time for further specific training.
The General Manager confirmed that there have no been no lay-off’s as a result of the fire last month confirming, “We invest a lot in our staff and I am delighted that in discussion with our insurers we have been able to retain all our staff, including our casual team members as well.
Chairman of the Charitable Trust, Mr Bill Fraser commented, “The Board of Trustees met today and were updated by the Senior Team as to the progress to date.
“We are obviously very grateful for the work that the team have undertaken to date and appreciate the ongoing efforts they are making to get the facilities re-open for our customers as soon as possible.
“We also appreciate the very positive comments we have received from our customers and again thank them for their patience with us during this unfortunate time. We are doing all we possibly can to get the pools at Inverness Leisure open as soon as possible.
~ENDS