“Residents have raised questions as to why Whiteland’s Way Sport Centre operated by Bicester Town Council has been ‘closed’.
Bicester Town Council would like to confirm that at no time has the centre been closed and third-party resident businesses and sports clubs have continued to operate normally. We acknowledge that lessons could be learned from the way the communication of the closure was made.
On the week commencing 21st October, an unforeseen and temporary staff shortage issue arose. Initially this resulted in operations on the weekend of 26th/27th October being severely curtailed, with only a limited number of games on our 3G pitches going ahead. All other bookings continued as normal.
To operate the 3G pitches safely, our liability insurance requires a certain number of experienced and suitably trained staff are on duty whenever the pitches are in use.
As soon as Town Council Officers identified there was a temporary staff shortage, they introduced sensible and appropriate contingency measures by redeploying staff from other areas of the council’s operation to support the facility. We are extremely grateful to our staff members, several of whom volunteered to work weekends and provided a rapid and flexible response. In addition, we reached out to an external agency to provide temporary staff members to further support the operation.
We recognise the impact the temporary reduction in service has had upon residents and customers and we thank them for their patience and understanding. The contingency measures have seen us return to a near normal service in terms of both number of bookings and pitch hours utilised.
We anticipate resuming normal service levels from next Monday, 18th November 2024. In the interim, ad-hoc and walk-in bookings at weekends may not be available.
Bicester Town Council takes the privacy of all staff very seriously, we therefore do not comment on any personnel matters. We call upon customers, residents and media to avoid unwelcome and misleading speculation.”
Last Updated 13 November 2024
