symyjym
Banned
No it's not nonsense, Guilford has 350,000 visitors to their ice rink each year. That is almost an average of a thousand people a day. Ice rinks make money, swimming pools lose it.
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King Alfred Development - Rob Starr, Crest Nicholson, No 50m Pool
- Thread starter knocky1
- Start date
No it's not nonsense, Guilford has 350,000 visitors to their ice rink each year. That is almost an average of a thousand people a day. Ice rinks make money, swimming pools lose it.
Bit of a joke that somewhere the size of Brighton with so many keen swimmers doesn't have a 50m pool.
I'm not into swimming but the facilities we have at Ponds Forge are world class for swimming and diving and seem to be in constant use for training and competitions attracting people from near and far. We also have a massive ice arena with 2 Olympic size rinks, the huge English Institute of Sport for indoor athletics and loads of other sports, world class climbing and bouldering walls and two shit football teams.
Obviously it's less expensive to build stuff here, but still.
The problem seems to be that money talks and even a development that includes large amounts of funding from the council ends up swaying towards "how many expensive flats can we cram in". Which doesn't seem fair.
I'm not into swimming but the facilities we have at Ponds Forge are world class for swimming and diving and seem to be in constant use for training and competitions attracting people from near and far. We also have a massive ice arena with 2 Olympic size rinks, the huge English Institute of Sport for indoor athletics and loads of other sports, world class climbing and bouldering walls and two shit football teams.
Obviously it's less expensive to build stuff here, but still.
The problem seems to be that money talks and even a development that includes large amounts of funding from the council ends up swaying towards "how many expensive flats can we cram in". Which doesn't seem fair.
Tom Hark Preston Park
Will Post For Cash
- Jul 6, 2003
- 72,348
Brighton Tigers 2.0 ice hockey team would be a sure fire winner. Must be some way of converting the Amex to host an ice hockey team shirley and lure people into the stadium on a regular basis when the Albion aren't playing there. Or is that too simple?
People like me? I asked a question, that's all.
Good facilities are essential for young swimmers (and other sports) and competitive swimmers. The importance of 50m pools is very much overplayed, IMO.
Ponds Forge is a fine old facility, but 25 years after its construction (for the World Student Games) the City of Sheffield is STILL paying off the construction debt (for that and Don Valley stadium). The pool does get an enormous amount of competition use though - by a long, long way the most competition days of any pool in the UK. Brighton would not be able to compete for those competitions if it had a 50m pool, though - just as the London Aquatics Centre can't, because of...
Hotel space, and cost.
National championships, Age Group Champs, Regionals, University Games, World Masters, World Firefighter Games, etc, etc - all held in Sheffield, because they have the required facilities and LOADS of cheap hotel rooms.
Something like the Age Group Champs requires British Swimming to book 7 nights accommodation for up to 100 people (officials, staff, volunteers). Can you imagine the cost of that in Brighton? And they also of course consider that hundreds of swimmers and their families need hotels, too.
symyjym
Banned
The best place for an ice rink at the Amex is underground, underneath the coach park.
symyjym
Banned
50m pools can be divided with booms and they can have a diving area or and a tuition area. That's what they do these days.
Tom Hark Preston Park
Will Post For Cash
- Jul 6, 2003
- 72,348
Tho I'm thinking that if they can cover the pitch to cater for Rod Stewart fans, it really wouldn't be much of a technical challenge to rig up an ice rink on the pitch to host games once a week. Even Brighton Pavilion can stick an ice rink on its grass. And people flock to it.
Do you mean that they can't build a leisure centre for that, or they can't build all the other stuff too?
symyjym
Banned
I don't think they could tbh. The grass would die.
No sh1t.
Its very rare for a 50m pool now to not have either a traversible boom or a submersible boom, plus hydraulic floors to adjust the depth in at least one part.
Unsure how its relevant to my point about hotel rooms and attracting competitions to the city, though!?
Tom Hark Preston Park
Will Post For Cash
- Jul 6, 2003
- 72,348
Could build the rink a few inches above the grass, set it up on the day of the match and dismantle it overnight. Doubt the grass would even notice.
symyjym
Banned
Calm down.
Why are you so aggressive? I was only addressing a 50m pool flexibility.
You replied to my earlier comment as “Nonsense” and you start this one with “No sh1t”
At least be mature and adult about things if you disagree with something.
symyjym
Banned
I am sure that temp ice rinks take a couple of days to install and a couple of days to dismantle, so the grass would lose 5 days sunlight.
Dick Swiveller
Well-known member
- Sep 9, 2011
- 9,531
Does that include people watching the Flames because I'm not entirely sure 1000 people a day go Ice Skating?
symyjym
Banned
Yes, from what I remember this figure of visitors numbers to the Guilford Spectrum ice arena, from 4 years ago, would include spectators. There wasn't a breakdown of the user types to the ice arena.
I thought I saved the document or bookmarked it on my pc but I cannot locate it right now. If I find it I will post it.
An ice arena in Brighton would achieve the same visitors numbers and maybe more because of the large catchment area of young people and population density.
Can't argue with the rest of your post although it does point out the amount of income that the city receives by having such a facility but this is something that always gets brought up and irritates me slightly.
The improvements to the city made for the WSG have been used as a stick to beat the council with for decades. Fact is, the true cost wasn't that bad when you consider the long term benefit to the area. It wasn't just Don Valley and Ponds Forge, lots of dilapidated flats were improved etc. The real crime was that successive councils refinanced the debt so badly, and this is why it's still being paid off.
I'd like to see a real cost/benefit analysis though on how much the local economy has gained by having these facilities over 25 years. Most Sheffield folk wouldn't like this though as (like most people) they prefer to just slag the council off (while using the great facilities). Better things to slag them off for imo.
Anyway, sorry this is completely OFF topic.
I believe that there's a restriction on the number of sporting events that can be held at the Amex in any year. This is a non-starter (even if it were possible to find a way to incorporate an ice-rink into the stadium)
We must have plenty of surplus after Hyppia's period; didn't see many sporting events during his tenure.