UKC

Went down to St Mary's last night and there was a sign up saying the council want to close the place down! There is a meeting at 6pm this sunday (5th) to discuss this.

Light your torches, gather your placcards and lets keep St Mary's open. See you there.

In reply to MagnusL: Not again.
Remember they went through this a couple of years ago. There were claims that the hotel being built opposite was actually a sports centre.

In reply to MagnusL:

No way!

I learned to climb there with the RATS, happy memories. I hope it doesn't close down.

In reply to MagnusL:

bump

In reply to MagnusL:

If people enjoy climbing there, then fair enough.

Personally I think it's the worst indoor wall I've ever visited. The 5 mile trip to the Calshot wall seems a worthwhile detour to me.

In reply to stone honkey:

Yeah, you're right, it's terrible, but its a half hour drive to Calshot for me or a 10 min walk to St Mary's. I try and do 2 days at Calshot and one at St. Mary's. I play squash there too. Its very cheap

In reply to MagnusL: I used to go there alot last year when I was working there! I thought it was a great little wall and if you lived in Southampton and had no trasport it was easy to get to!

In reply to MagnusL:

Do they want to close the whole centre or just the climbing wall? It pisses me off, I can point at 10 things the council have spent money on in Southampton over the last year that just wastes everyones time, yet the first think they look to save money on is closing sports facilities when lets face it a lot of residents could do with the exercise.

In reply to stone honkey:

St,mary wall is the best wall i have climb on, it made for the HARD GRIT CLIMBERS form up north, Not southan girls.

its A GREAT WALL

In reply to Richard Horn: The council is once again proposing to close St. Mary's, they are having a meeting at one o'clock on Wednesday the fifteenth, as there is a user group which was set up last time this was proposed, we are planning to lobby the meeting next week.
Be there if you can.

Yes they are closing all the center.

In reply to Peter Swift:

"St,mary wall is the best wall i have climb on"

Is it really? What other walls have you climbed at?

I would like to know the criteria you use for judging the quality of an indoor wall. My main criticisms of St Mary's wall are:

1) There are no lead routes, only toproping
2) There are less than 20 routes
3) The height of the routes is less than 6 metres

In my opinion it's a very poor quality indoor wall. I'm not saying I could do any better with the limited resources available, but on an absolute basis comparing it with other walls I have climbed at it's the worst wall I've ever come across.

In reply to stone honkey:
One thing i do know about the art of climbing you make the best of what you got!!

I have climbed many walls and i still think St ,Marys Wall as a lot to offer. E,By,Gum