New expansion for leisure centre with studio and salon development

An award winning leisure centre is hoping that an expansion of its facilities will bring a boost for Inverness as a whole.

At the first formal meeting for new chairperson Ella MacRae, Inverness Leisure gave the go-ahead to progress work on the two new additions to the Inverness Leisure facility.

Mrs MacRae, who took over from outgoing Chairman Bill Fraser at the start of the month was joined at her first meeting by Hamish Wood who has taken on the role of Vice Chair for the Company.

The new Company Chair had the pleasant task of chairing the Committee at the meeting where they gave General Manager, James Martin the go-ahead.

Speaking after the meeting, Mrs MacRae said, “It was nice that my first meeting since taking on the role of Chair was to see the management team given the approval to move forward with his recommendation to change the projectile hall to a new multi-purpose fitness and dance studio.

“In addition, to this we also approved works to start on the installation of a new health and beauty salon as well as a hairdressing salon in areas of the building that were previously used for other purposes.

Explaining how the projects will be funded, Mrs MacRae said, “We are extremely grateful to Highland Council for agreeing to support the redevelopment of the project we are calling ‘Studio 2’ by agreeing to fund it using the residual funds from the old Loch Ness and Highland Horizons Company which was set up at the early stages of the Aquadome development.

“The Board and Management are aware that budgets are very tight across all sectors at the moment. We are therefore delighted that our partners in Highlands Council were able to appreciate the benefits of the new Studio 2 project, which we are sure will see footfall rise at Inverness Leisure and therefore increase activity levels around the City.

“As far as the salon is concerned, the Board members felt that the information supplied by the General Manager demonstrated there was definitely a customer base in Inverness Leisure who would use both the hair and beauty salons when it opens in the New Year.

She went on, “We have a huge amount of customers coming through our doors every day and the feedback to the General Manager is that parents would definitely make use of our hairdressers for themselves and their children when they were in the centre as well as coming for some rest and relaxation at in our health and beauty salon.

“We have the added benefit of free parking, good facilities, late opening hours and loads of things for the family to do while mum, dad, brother or sister is getting their hair cut, so we are pretty sure the salon is going to be very busy when it opens.

“The Company will be funding the Salon redevelopment itself as we are confident that there is a need for this service in the centre and that it will do extremely well.

“The General Manager has been able to appoint to very experienced staff to run the salon and will be working with them over the next few months to get the new salon up and running ready for opening early January 2012.

Concluding, the new Company chair said, “It is really pleasing to see Inverness Leisure continuing to expand and develop at a time when others are tightening their belts. We have a hugely loyal customer base and it is thanks to their continuing support that we are seeing the facility continuing to grow.”

Whilst this was Ella’s first meeting in the Chair, it was also the first Board meeting for former Highland Council Solicitor Donald Somerville who has joined the Board as a Community/Business Director taking over the position vacated by outgoing Chairman Bill Fraser.

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