Views of Wales

It doesn’t encourage an active lifestyle

I WAS informed by my 15 year old daughter on December 4 that the company Greenwich Leisure Limited, that has taken over the running of the Cardiff Leisure Centres since December 1, has imposed a time bound limit for teenagers access the gym facilities.

This means that although the pupils leave school around 3pm daily they are not able to access the gym facilities until 4pm and then only for two one-hour slots until 6pm.

Someone has to realise that this is going to:

a. result in the teenagers loitering outside the gym facilities or

b. result in teenagers not going to the gym at all.

Personally speaking, as the father of a 15-year-old daughter, I don’t want my daughter waiting around in the dark until she is allowed access to the facilities.

We should be encouraging teenagers to maintain an active, healthy lifestyle. This new policy appears to do everything to prevent that.

The front desks of the leisure centres have heard a lot of complaints about this in the past few days but it is not something that is controlled locally. Additionally when you contact the company about this issue, the email is merely passed onto the local facility management.

Some common sense has to be applied here. These facilities are to be managed for the benefit of the locals and in particular when a membership fee has been paid. They should be encouraged to use these facilities not prevented.

Paul Driscoll

Blackwood