Inverness Aquadome update

Following on from the fire at Inverness Leisure this weekend, James Martin commented, “We have now had a chance to communicate with our insurers and we are hopeful that their experts will visit the centre very soon to assess the damage.

“I have now had a chance to show representatives of the Board’s Building & Technical Committee around the affected area to view the situation and start discussions about the options open to the facility in getting back on track as soon as possible.

Speaking on behalf of the Trustees, one of the visiting Committee representatives commented, “We have had a chance to look at the plant room where the fire took place and at this stage would concur with the view held by management that it looks unlikely the pools will open during the next week.

“We have been fully briefed on the weekend’s proceedings by the General Manager and would pay tribute to the way in which this unfortunate incident has been handled by the Team.  From all accounts it seems processes and procedures have automatically clicked into place and the evacuation has gone like clockwork.

“We are grateful to the staff for the various roles they have played in ensuring our customers safety and undertaking their jobs very professionally and competently.

Referring to the actual evacuation at the weekend James Martin once again paid tribute to the help and assistance offered by First Group, who were on actually on Athletics Stadium for their Monster event.  He said, “In accordance with our emergency plan the customers were originally taken to the Floral Hall and then an operational decision was taken to move them to Monster Event Marquee when the offer was put to us.

“Our emergency plan has a number of options contained within as to where our customers can be mustered to and as it happens it was decided to use the Marquee on Saturday.  If the marquee had not been available my Incident Team would simply have utilised one of the other options available to us.

“I think it is important however to stress that during the whole evacuation process, we received no complaints from customers and found them to be very patient and understanding about the whole situation.  With the main emphasis being that our team got the building evacuated in minutes; everyone taken to safety with no body injured, hurt or hospitalised.

“And as we understand it we started re-admitting people to the building in around 2 hours, although some people had been given their belongings before that as they were being distributed by our own staff who had already been given limited access to the building.

“In relation to the time limits on re-accessing the facilities, I can confirm that we are very much in the hands of the professionals with this regard and can only readmit customers when the fire service actually give us the all clear to do so.  As we had been working with the Inverness Fire Fighting team I would concur that we could not have allowed access at any point before we were allowed to do so and would again thank the Fire Service for the work they undertook for us at the weekend.

Concluding he said, “Whilst we are still waiting on discussions with our insurance assessors, it is now clear that the facilities will not reopen this week.  We would therefore ask that any customers who have booked events in the swimming pools between now and Sunday to note that the facilities will not re-open during this period.

 “I or members of my team will continue to communicate with our customer through the press and media. In the meantime we are extremely grateful for their patience, support and words of encouragement for the team members.

 ~ENDS~