UKC

Have been climbing at Westway in London for years and the climbing wall staff are great there.

However since Everyone Active took over the experience has been as follows:

- a 25% hike in the yearly membership cost
- the closing down of various aspects of the centre including mens toilets for months (necessitating going to a separate building)
- the closing down of all the bouldering and a lot of the lead routes for redevelopment of the bouldering area for months
- the closing of Urban Rock such that it is currently impossible (and has been for about two months) to even buy chalk

Obviously adding to the bouldering is all good but it's progressing at a glacial pace. I climb frequently during the day on weekdays and generally there are never more than two people working on the project and often there are none at all.

To add insult to injury Everyone Active keep sending emails about the new gym which they've built on the site and actually built reasonably quickly.

Yet during this time there has been zero communication from Everyone Active apologising for the disruption and zero offer of recompense for the massively reduced facilities (and building noise etc on the rare occasions when work is actually being done).

All in all very unimpressed so far with Everyone Active.

In reply to BGG:

Everyone Active runs sports centres and swimming pools. They know nothing about climbing or climbing centres.
The Westway trust have always struggled with knowing how to run a climbing wall, they've had some brilliant wall managers and climbing staff over the years who have all grown frustrated with the lack of support and investment in the climbing wall and have left.
The current Westway Trust Management are probably the worst of the lot and they basically were out of thier depth and didn't know how to run the sports centre at all. They therefore put it all out to tender hoping they'd find someone to run it who could make it look like the management had made a good decision.
Considering the Westway Trust is a charity that was set up to provide for the local community farming the whole lot out to a company that is only interested in profits stinks.
Urbanrock were treated appallingly by the trust over the years. They always supported competitions at the wall and the kids squad, instructors etc and were basically shat on by the trust for no real reason as a good shop at a wall like that only adds to it.

In reply to BGG:
Hi Guys,

Thanks for the feedback, im Jez the Head of Climbing at the Westway so please feel to direct enquiries at me on here or @ jeztapping@everyoneactive.com .
I am just going to address a few if the concerns you have already raised.
1) There has been no price hike in the annual membership. All climbing prices since Everyone active took over have stayed the same. Annual and DD members have been offered rewards for their loyalty during the wall build.
4) Although Urban rock is no longer with us yu can buy your essential chalk at the Front of House and as of the 3rd of July we will have our own new climbing shop which we hope will go towards assisting users of the wall. By no means a replacement of Urban rock!
2&3) As with any build we are unfortunalely suffering from outtages but to make an omelete we have to break eggs,and within the confines of our uniquely shaped centre it has meant disruptions.

The wall build has all been planned out to coincide with developments in the whole centre, for example the gym started allot earlier than you will have realised due to the minimal disruption is caused climbing. But rest assured Xcult our wall builders will have hands on as of the26 of June and then we will be full steam for completion in early August!

Communication has been an issue for quite some time and part of the developments aims are to help improve this for climbers. These are not going to resolve over night but the new Climbing Front of House which will be based in the shop area will be your single point of contact for all things climby! Furthermore, as of September i will be hosting a forum for people to com along and find out what the climbing department has in stall for the future.

And yesbutnobut yes:

The Westway Trust Management trust are no longer running the site. I have been the Head of Climbing for around 18 months and saw out the last few months of WT operation and now run it under Everyone Active - Who between them have forked out the £3.7Million for the current investment we are seeing. Both of whom are also charitable organisations. Their strategic governance is however not my concern, im the operational manager and i can assure you that we are pushing the centre back to the forefront of the climbing industry. The current climbing management team are super psyched with where the department is going and with this motivation and some genuinely talented (not talking about myself of course) people we do hope we can live up to the reputation the Westway has.

But please come and chat to me whenever your in centre, i would be pleased to talk to you.

In reply to Jez Tap

The annual pass in January this year was considerably more than in January last year.

In reply to Jez Taps:

Thanks for the feedback. The upgraded common areas so far look good and I hope that the climbing area will be equally good. It can't be bad that there is some major investment going in.

My immediate concern is the lack of communication. What is being built? When is is expected to be completed? Will there be any form of replacement for Urban Rock (which seems to have been disgracefully treated). Without bouldering and autobelays (why and when will they be back?) the climbing centre currently provides virtually nothing for "solo" climbers-why no warning or signage to acknowledge this?

A little effort on this front would create a lot of goodwill.

Hi Kirsten,

The Annual pass last January was a special promotion not the normal price of this product. We did not run the same promotion this year because we knew we were going to be having the development works. But we will be looking at this for January 2018 also.

PostmanPat
We have tried to advertise as widely as possible through eshots, social media, customer forums as well as a huge banners in the reception area. So we are looking to address the communication issue. Including me at home trawling UKC! All works for climbing should be finished by mid august resulting (directly for climbing) a new climbing specific front of house, a shop, a new kitting up area, a new mezanine bouldering area (almost doubling the meterage) and a new and improved training area.

2 auto belays are back in action today and the other 2 will be back early next week.

Im heading off to Swanage in the early hours folks so please do not take lack of comms personally.

In reply to Jez Taps:

So we have "There has been no price hike in the annual membership. " and "he Annual pass last January was a special promotion not the normal price of this product"

Sounds a bit like Dfs sofas sticking the price of all their sofas up by 20% and claiming it's not a price hike as the previous ones were on sale.

In reply to Scotch Bingington:
Does seem a little wonky that they didn't offer the discount this year if they knew about the works (pay more for less?), also that would have been a *really* good time to mention said work.

In fairness, Jez and team did respond to criticism re communication with an open evening session with the centre management before work began. I get the impression they were caught out by the builders' requirement to have the comp wall closed, likewise it was hardly planned to have the autobelays out of action. There's pretty regular updates on their Facebook page and Jez is pretty approachable.

In reply to BGG:

So people are working to improve the wall for climbers yet climbers are on here whining and complaining?

No price hike - the price is always £399 has been for a few years. But January 2017 we pushed a special promotion with added incentives or a discounted rate. This year we did not to not encourage purchasing of this product, however annual members were rewarded with 3 months free use of our gym, 3 months added membership and use of West1 if they wanted it. All above board and next January we will look to run something similar.



I don't see climbers complaining here I see people raising their concerns and Me hoping to address them as best I can. Their is disruption I'm afraid, I just hope everyone will be as vocal about the improvements once they are unveiled! It is going to be great!

Back to the crag I'm afraid!

In reply to Jez Taps:

Hi Jez,

Appreciate that the works will result in long term improvements, but in the short term they are very disruptive. I keep hearing rumours of plans to compensate annual pass buyers for the disruption i.e. we are paying full price for a half-service. Do you have any plans in the offing that you can share?

And just a plea to keep the focus on quality routesetting. I have climbed at the Westway for nearly 10 years and the routesetting and bouldersetting over the last few months have become pretty erratic in quality and particularly inaccurate grading. At the moment there are a trio of 6c/+s on routes 66-68 that are ridiculously hard for example, all just because a bunch of grim slopers have been thrown on in the top section. I would estimate all of these to actually be about 7a+. I guess the focus at the moment is on getting the works sorted but please try to ensure you keep the quality external setters coming in as well as relying on the internal team.

Cheers.

In reply to Jez Taps:

Jez thanks for this response.

A few points:

1. My annual membership cost was 320 in Jan 2016 and 399 in Jan 2017 so something definitely changed...
2. Yes I take the point about outages and am glad to hear that the wall builders are arriving soon. It's just a bit frustrating seeing no-one/one person/two people working on it so frequently...
3. Thanks for the point on the chalk, I didn't know that and look forward to the new shop.
4. I still think there should be some recompense for people who forked out for a yearly membership and have had pretty severe disruption and essentially are forced to pay to boulder elsewhere...

The forum sounds like a good idea, thanks for that.

Hi Guys,

Sorry for the tardy response -

Apologies for the confusion I typed January 2017 when I should have said 2016. To be clear on this point the annual membership here at the centre is £399 and has been for a few years now. However in January of 2016 we ran a special promotion. This was pay the normal price of £399 and get free gym, private coaching etc or pay a cheaper price for the normal membership £320. On the price presentation for this promotion it did very clearly state this was a discount on the normal price. This year we did not run this promotion sort of promotion because of the works, however those purchasing this product subsequently have had 3 months added to their membership automatically, free use of the new gym until the 14th of August and use of West1 ( a climbing wall around the corner) for free. Anyone who is unsure whether they are eligible for this, or whether they have received this please contact me on jeztapping@everyoneactive.com .

Thanks for the route setting feedback. Another area of improvement we have identified and actioned is the need for a Route setting Co-ordinator. We have hired for this position and they will be starting on later this month. The purpose of this role is to maintain the high standards of setting we are known for this person is also missioned with events co-ordination to start to build the community at the centre.

With regards to the amount of builder you have seen in this area, the coming weeks you will see a flurry of activity and it will come along very quickly in the next 2 months.

As ever ladies and gents thanks for the feedback, keep it coming.