A DECISION to open sports centres at pre-pandemic hours after lockdown saw more customers return to East Lothian facilities than in other parts of the country, it has been claimed.

East Lothian Council’s arms-length leisure company enjoyleisure said that nearly 80 per cent of its members had returned, compared to as low as 60 per cent in some local authority areas.

Chief executive Bill Axon said that the “risky” decision to reopen the centres in the county at normal times had been a success.

Presenting the firm’s annual report to the council’s audit and governance committee last week,  Mr Axon said: “We are in the top quartile, if not the top of the Premier League, in terms of the number of customers who returned to use our facilities, which is touching 80 per cent, while the average in the rest of the country is 60 per cent.”

The committee heard that enjoyleisure had seen an 88 per cent fall in customers using its sports centres between April 2020 and March 2021, when they remained closed for a large part of the time.

However, visitors to its golf courses rose by nearly 19 per cent, with an additional 10,000 golfers using them.

The operational loss for the company was £447,000, nearly half of what had been predicted at the start of the pandemic.

Mr Axon said that the decision to reopen centres at pre-pandemic hours following lockdown had seen a huge rise in people returning to them.

He said: “We were delighted to work with the council on what was a groundbreaking approach because in general, most other organisations similar to enjoy and other local authorities did not open up all of their facilities from the outset and, indeed, provided a reduced service delivery to its communities. 

“That did not happen in East Lothian and our approach was quite clear. We wanted to reopen and give confidence back to our communities that their facilities were opening in a safe environment that they could come and visit.

“So whilst there was a risk attached to the decision, it was great that we could work together to ensure we were ahead of the game in terms of customers’ returns.”

Despite the strong return, Mr Axon told the committee that enjoyleisure did not expect to return to pre-Covid membership or income for another two years.

But he said that things were looking up, with the predicted income from September this year, the first month after all restrictions had been lifted in the centres, expected to be double the amount taken in August.

He told the committee that 285 members of staff were furloughed during lockdown, equating to 95 per cent of the workforce.

And he praised his employees for all their hard work bringing the sport centres and facilities back into use.

He said: “I want to put on record our appreciation of all our staff who have gone above and beyond their duties.”