We had an email from a resident who wrote:
Hi Chris just looked at your web site there doesn’t seem to be anything about Rayleigh sports centre being taken over by Virgin active. Were you aware? Seems that the council paid rather a lot of money to finance the new sports centre and clements hall I am really surprised that there hasn’t been pressure by the council on Holmes place not to sell to Virgin, mainly because most people can’t afford Virgin prices and although they have
said that most prices will stay the same until 2008, what will happen then? We will have facilities that people have paid for that only a few can afford!!!
Please can you let me know your thoughts.
Well , the council haven’t made a public statement yet, they are waiting to see if the takeover actually takes place. But they have confirmed to us to me if the takeover goes ahead, the terms of the council’s contract will remain unchanged, Virgin would be allowed to make increases in line with inflation, but no higher than that without the agreement of the council. (Having said that, it might well affect some of the membership deals on offer)
Whilst we are writing about sports centres here’s a couple of points –
We know that some people have been bothered by floodlights etc from the Rayleigh Leisure Centre . Is anyone still having problems?
We are also disappointed that the District Council hasn’t done yet to sort out the land south of the new sports centre – it’s supposed to be public open space, but looks just like derelict land at the moment. Do people have any thoughts on this?
Hi Chris,
I was one of the people who had the problems with the floodlighting but I am happy to say that this has now been rectified although it took nearly 3 weeks to get it fixed !
Regarding the land south of the sports centre. The sooner it is sorted out the better it is a complete eyesore at the moment. I doubt if it will be long before the flytippers move in and that will make it even worse. Perhaps some pressure can be put on the District Council to get this land sorted out .
Some good news- I’ve been told that the Essex Bridleways Association, Wimpeys and Essex County Council Rights of Way department have been working on this.
Thanks to some co-operation from Wimpey, there should be a bridle way (i.e. a hard surfaced path that anyone can walk on) running between the roundabout by the new school and Sweyne Park – in place by the end of the year.