Speaking at the Monthly Council Meeting Cllr Haughey said, “I have been contacted by a constituent living in the Poyntzpass area who wished to avail of the leisure facilities at Richhill on a Saturday afternoon. The man in question rang Richhill to check availability and was frustrated that his phone call was not answered. He opted against travelling from Poyntzpass to Richhill as there was no answer at the leisure facility. When he raised this issue with me I immediately contacted Council Officers to ascertain why no-on was answering phones and I was shocked to hear that the centre closed early that day because there were no bookings.
“This is not good enough. As a council facility, paid for by ratepayers, it is vital that there is a high standard of customer service. Closing the facility before the stated closing times will put people off from using the centre all together. It is also disgraceful that an answer phone message was not left by the centre to highlight to any potential service users that the centre was closed.
“It is unacceptable that a leisure facility should close on an ad hoc basis like this. Closing times should be set and should be adhere to. “This incident highlights a very serious level of bad customer service which I as a councillor am not happy about. I want this issue fully investigated and report tabled for councillors’ consideration to ensure this does not happen again.”
Council Officers agreed to investigate the issue further and will bring back a report to the October Council Meeting.
ENDS