Swim booking now in the fast lane

PEOPLE booking swimming sessions at Wymondham leisure centre found the system had speeded up when they arrived at the site on Sunday. South Norfolk Council decided to introduce changes to the system following complaints from angry parents who had queued for up to four hours to make reservations on behalf of their children on a previous occasion.

PEOPLE booking swimming sessions at Wymondham leisure centre found the system had speeded up when they arrived at the site on Sunday.

South Norfolk Council decided to introduce changes to the system following complaints from angry parents who had queued for up to four hours to make reservations on behalf of their children on a previous occasion.

They criticised the council for having too few staff to cope with demand. Some customers gave up and left because they had to collect children from school.

The changes included switching registration to a Sunday, instead of a weekday, and having far more staff employed to take reservations for the centre's popular swim school sessions which have to be pre-booked.

Michelle Monck, the authority's new champion for culture and leisure, was also helping.

She said: “I had heard of the four hours queuing story from the past, and things were a lot better on Sunday. We were open at 8.20am and by 11am we had a tot-up and had actually seen 500 people. We had 20 members of staff dedicated to the swim school this time.

“People said 'It looks more organised. We can see you have put a lot of people and effort behind it, and it's much better than previous years.”

Diss has a much smaller swim centre and will be taking bookings on Saturday.