UKC

Please can anyone who, even if its only occasionally, climbs at St Marys - please visit it soon and sign the petition form thats on the wall inside the climbing room.

They want to "develop" the St Marys centre by moving the cardiovascular room next to the weights room - this will mean that the wall will be cut down to 60% of its current size (which lets be honest isnt exactly huge!) AND they will be removing the bouldering wall.

So please can anyone that climbs here go and sign the petition! If you dont sign it dont go complaining if/when they downsize it, you'd have no one to blame but yourself! You can make a difference!

Thank you.

In reply to Ashley:

Bump

In reply to Ashley:

Haven't been there in years and not in the area any more, but it's pretty small as it is! Would be a shame if they made it even smaller.

In reply to Danos:

It would be a shame for them to downsize it just to keep the meatheads in the gym happy next door because they cant be bothered to walk 20 yards to use the CV stuff.

In reply to Ashley:

Currently I only tend to go to St Marys for the bouldering. It is not great but cheaper than going all the way to Calshot and suffices perfectly for a quick session after work. I never use the main wall as it is far too small to warrant putting a harness on - if they bought some bigger crash mats, the whole thing could be a bouldering wall.

Not sure how the mods are going to work, surely there is another squash court in between the current weights room and the climbing wall?

However, I can see where the leasure centre is coming from, it isnt exactly financially healthy at the moment (council tried to shut it last year) and if they can get more cash from the meatheads who use the gym facilities more regularly then I suspect they will. I will sign the petition but suspect it will be a waste of time if more people dont actually turn up and use the climbing wall...

In reply to Ashley:
I've tried presenting development ideas for the wall on numerous occasions to improve the design and usability of the bouldering facility. Unfortunately the management/council have higher agendas than pandering to the needs of climbers (politics schmolotics) and don't really appreciate that with some fairly modest improvements, they could increase the usage considerably. There are financial and insurance constraints overiding much of the decision making.
I had heard that the climbing wall generates more income than the squash courts anyway!
I admit to being guilty of using other walls, frequently spending between 1 - 3 hours driving during a week day evening to get to a wall that offers better quality bouldering (ridiculous when I live 2 minutes walk from St Mary's).
However I shall be making sure to add my name to the list and try once again to put the point across when we can organise another meeting, that thoughful developing could significantly enhance climber visits.
I agree with Richard that full matting over the main area would be a major step in the right direction.

This facility is the only wall situated in the centre of Southampton. The sports centre housing the climbing wall was nearly closed completely last year (expenditure cutbacks) and was repreived at the 11th hour after massive public outcry and protests.
Hopefully the restructuring might provide an opportunity for an improvement in quality, even if it does decrease in size in the process.

In reply to purple sue:

That was the one and only good thing that I could think of that might come out of the situation.

My friends and I use St Marys about as much as we use Calshot because its a great place for working on the technically hard routes as opposed to Calshot where the routes are generally less technical but more sustained (or so it appears to me). If they do downsize I think that I (like many others) will end up climbing at Calshot much more than St Marys which would be a shame.