Efforts ongoing to stop leisure centre at Donegal hotel from closing

Efforts are ongoing to find a way of keeping the leisure centre and swimming pool at a Donegal hotel open.
The Bay View Hotel is closing its leisure centre tonight as the facility is not making money.
A public meeting earlier this month heard that the leisure centre lost €70,000 and the hotel cannot sustain such losses.
Managing Director of the hotel, Henry Coleman, told the meeting that if the hotel could not be leased before September 1st, the leisure centre will close.
Mr Coleman told the meeting in early August that the losses had been continuing since 2013. For the first five months of this year, the loss was €30,000, he said.
Membership fees totalling €47,000 at present were not enough to cover wages in the leisure centre, apart from the other costs, he revealed. “We are happy with the way the hotel, in general, is going”, he said, “but not the leisure centre.”
He said that, if the centre could not be leased within the month, it would close on September 1st.
And he emphasised that the leisure centre is the only part of the Bay View business that was closing.
Speaking to the Donegal Democrat this week Mr Coleman confirmed the centre was due to close tonight.
He would not confirm if any approaches have been made to take over the centre said the Local politicians have said the closure will have a huge impact on Killybegs and the south west Donegal area as a whole as it is used by community groups and schools as well as individuals.
Independent councillor Niamh Kennedy said there are a number of parties locally who are interested in taking over the leisure centre.
She said it seems certain that the pool will close tomorrow (Friday) but that the closure would only be on a temporary basis for a few weeks.
She said already a local provider is offering bus trips to Ballyshannon swimming pool to provide swimming lessons.
“There has been some interest from people who could come in and take it over,” she said.
“There is no firm commitment yet but I am hopeful that there is the means within the community to keep it open if we get support from people to use it. We are all very hopeful that there will be a satisfactory outcome for all and hope that the negotiations will work to the benefit of the community.”