Limited access for public to Outer Hebrides school sports facilities

Last Thursday, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that gyms and swimming pools could look to reopen following national guidance from August 31. But locally, the reopening of facilities is likely to take a bit longer.

A Comhairle spokesperson said: “The benefits of activity for our mental and physical health are huge, so this is a very positive step forward.

In the Outer Hebrides, we face particular challenges with five of our six sports facilities being based in schools and our largest building, Ionad Spòrs Leòdhais serving the Nicolson Institute during the school day.

“Our priority, as the First Minister has said repeatedly, is getting our young people back to school and normalising their education as quickly as possible. This will mean for the first period of reopening up until the October school holidays there will be limited access to all our facilities during the school day, to maximise their potential use by school pupils.

“This will be reviewed every three weeks and should schools not require to use these spaces for education purposes, then we will increase access as promptly as we can.

“Education has been a cornerstone of our community for generations and I’m sure that our service users will agree that this continues to be our priority in the short term as we hopefully progress out of the pandemic.”

The Comhairle has also stressed that that facilities will not be operating normally for some time – pool and gym sessions will need to be booked in advance, there will be a ‘pay as you go’ system in place until it is possible to fully reinstate the ‘Slàinte Mhath’ scheme.

There will also be very limited capacity to meet social distancing and other national guidelines.

The Comhairle spokesperson added: “Our objective will always be to offer a service that is safe for our service users and staff, and we are grateful for your understanding in these uncertain times.”

During lockdown, swimming pools across the Outer Hebrides have been looked after by staff on site to ensure that once the appropriate stage of the Scottish Government roadmap was reached they would be able to return them to use as quickly as possible.

However, there are technical issues that must be adhered to before swimmers can return to the water.

Lifeguards will also be required to undertake re-induction training which includes pool based competency assessments before reopening. This can only be undertaken when the pools are up to temperature and appropriate microbiological results are in place.

These processes rely on external contractors and the Comhairle is working with them to progress this as promptly as possible.

Pools at Lionel and Shawbost will not be available until Phase 4 of the Scottish Government roadmap because of operational reasons relating to their position within school sites.