Chelmsford City Council Leisure Centres to close tonight (Friday 20 March)
Chelmsford City Council will be closing all four of its leisure centres, including Riverside, from the close of business tonight. We’ve been agonising over the right time to do this; we know how important exercise is to so many of you and we didn’t want to act too soon and remove a vital service before it was necessary. But with schools around the country closing and over-70s asked to start a period of self-isolation, now is the time for us to act.
We know this decision will not please everyone, but we all have our part to play in stopping this terrible pandemic and this is one of the ways we can do our bit. We’ll be constantly reviewing the latest guidance from the Government; we’ll keep in touch and let you know as soon as we are able to get our centres up and running again.
No customers will lose money while our centres are closed. All direct debit memberships will be frozen with immediate effect, and anyone who has paid an annual fee will have their membership extended.
The following centres will close tonight from:
- Riverside Leisure Centre (8pm)
- Chelmsford Sport and Athletics Centre (8pm)
- South Woodham Ferrers Leisure Centre (8pm)
- Dovedales Sports Centre (11pm)
About Direct Debits, payments and refunds
- All direct debits will be frozen with immediate effect. This covers all Wellness memberships, Swim School, Skate School, Sports School and Patch memberships. You do not need to do anything – we will freeze your payments automatically
- We will not be offering a partial refund for March Direct Debit payments at his stage. This will be reviewed once we have a date for reopening but we will ensure that customers don't lose out financially.
- Please do not cancel your direct debit with your bank. This will result in a delay in resuming your membership when we re-open
- We will give all members advance notice of when their direct debits will start again once we are able to confirm when we will be re-opening our centres
- All children’s holiday courses, parties and any other pay-as-you-go activities will be refunded automatically. There is no need to contact us, we will be in touch to process your refund, please allow up to 7 days for refunds to be processed.
- So that we can get in touch with people who have urgent bookings, we have a favour to ask of you. Please don’t call us for a refund in the coming days if you have a booking that isn’t coming up for a while. We will be in touch with every customer who needs a refund, but we will have to do this in date order.
About Beauty and the Beast on ice
- Beauty and the Beast ice show will now be on 26 to 30 August 2020.
- Your tickets will still be redeemable for a rescheduled show and the days and the new times will mirror exactly those you booked for April; for example, if you booked Wednesday evening at 6.30pm this April, you will automatically be transferred to the equivalent Wednesday evening show in August.
- If you can’t attend on these dates, please email riverside@chelmsford.gov.ukwith your order number, date and the time of the original show you booked.
About Play in the Park
- Play in the Park Easter holiday activities are cancelled. This is following advice from government for people to stay at home.
Thank you for your understanding and take good care of yourselves in the coming weeks. We’ll contact you soon with regular content and tips from our team about how to stay healthy at home, and if you haven’t already done so, sign up for www.chelmsford.gov.uk/mailinglist.
For the latest updates from us on coronavirus, you can visit www.chelmsford.gov.uk/coronavirus
For the latest information from the government, you can visit www.gov.uk/coronavirus
Thank you for your understanding and take good care of yourselves in the coming weeks. We’ll contact you soon with regular content and tips from our team about how to stay healthy at home, and if you haven’t already done so, sign up for www.chelmsford.gov.uk/mailinglist.
For the latest updates from us on coronavirus, you can visit www.chelmsford.gov.uk/coronavirus
For the latest information from the government, you can visit www.gov.uk/coronavirus
