Thank you to all KLPA members for their patience in trying to book a swim at the Ladies’ Pond since the City of London’s new platform went live last Friday afternoon. Thank you also to all those members who have emailed the City of London with accounts of the utterly shambolic state of that booking system. We have seen copies of many of your emails and your feedback has been focused and pertinent.
This platform is the responsibility of the City of London and many of the potential. problems were highlighted in advance by the swimmers’ associations. There has been at least four months to put such systems in place, much of which could still have been done via remote working, but this weekend we have seen the impact of a lack of adequate preparation. Significant groups of swimmers remain excluded for financial and technological reasons.
The City of London is also not keeping the swimmers’ associations adequately informed, instead announcing changes on Twitter, which is discourteous given the efforts we have all put into trying to help get these systems right. We first became aware via Twitter this afternoon that the booking platform is now suspended and unlikely to be available to book sessions before Saturday 18 July.
The continuing situation has been covered in the local press:
Ham & High 13 July 2020
Camden New Journal 11 July 2020
The swimmers’ associations are due to attend a regular meeting with Heath Management on-line on Tuesday 14 July, but no provision has been made for an on-line public gallery, which is also disappointing. We will be raising all of the issues our members have been experiencing over the last few days as well as revisiting the iniquitous decision to enforce and increase compulsory charges. The latter decision was justified last March with reference to season tickets, free swims for certain groups and a “Hardship Fund”, none of which is currently in place.
We have repeatedly asked the City of London to suspend its new charging regime during a continuing public health emergency, but these requests have been ignored. Please add your voice to these requests and also continue to send your wider observations and objections to:
Anne.Fairweather@cityoflondon.gov.uk
Bob Warnock@cityoflondon.gov.uk
HH-Swimming@cityoflondon.gov.uk
events@activetrainingworld.co.uk
Please copy these messages to klpamailbox@gmail.com