Craigavon: Concerns raised over South Lake Leisure Centre plumbing and sewage issues

Several weeks on from requesting a comprehensive report on issues at the leisure centre, Alderman Margaret Tinsley is still pursuing the issues.

At an ABC Community & Wellbeing committee meeting in February, the DUP representative for Craigavon DEA had raised serious concerns.

She stated at the time: “Several months ago, we had a problem with the sewage coming into the reception area, and really what my concern is, have we had an audit on the plumbing to make sure that we’re not going to have yet another issue?

"Have we been in contact with the contractor? Are we under guarantee? Are we able to claim? Is that work being done at our expense, or is that something that the contractor is covering under the guarantee?

"I suppose I’m really just concerned about the plumbing of the whole leisure centre going forward. It’s unfair for the staff and the users of the leisure centre to be coming up against all of these different issues.

"Just on a final point, there’s always a flushing problem in the toilets, and I just wonder, can that be looked at as part of the audit on the plumbing issue?

"It’s a new leisure centre, we shouldn’t be having these issues.”

Four weeks later, as the committee reconvened on March 10, Ald Tinsley was still anxious for answers.

Addressing the head of Health & Recreation, Darryn Causby, she asked: “I have been on the phone with officers, but I just wanted to have a formal response too. Where are we in terms of reviewing the current plumbing system?

"We got an email through last week with regards to the men’s toilets, which you can’t tell me it’s not linked to all of that. So what we need to find out is, what is the problems? And how are we going to rectify these? Because they’re not going to go away.”

Mr Causby replied: "There a number of issues, and we’re working with colleagues in the Estates to look at all of the issues that have come up, not just the ones in relation to plumbing, and how we manage those going forward.

"What we do intend to do is to highlight a number of the issues that have come up across the board, and bring it back into committee, so that members are aware of all of the issues, as opposed to maybe just one or two.

"We do intend to bring that forward as soon as we possibly can. I do hope that we would do that in April, but there is a risk because of Easter and the April committee being slightly earlier, that we could end up in May, depending on how quickly we get back all of the information.”

Ald Tinsley wanted some reassurance that the matter was being actively looked into.

“I do understand that sometimes I just ask a question and I don’t understand the fuller picture, but perhaps if we could have a little bit of reassurance [regarding] what we are doing in in the meantime.”

Mr Causby confirmed that work was ongoing to resolve all of the issues.