Aviemore resort offers to continue children's swimming lessons
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Macdonald Hotels has offered to maintain free access for primary school children from Aviemore so that they can learn to swim once the High Life Highland deal runs out tomorrow at their pool.
Resort bosses have also said they laid out a number of options for Highland Council in the discussions to try and find a way to break the deadlock including bringing in small charges for HLH members to use the pool.
The hotel giant has said rising wage, energy and rates bills meant that they were unable to accept the council’s final offer of £180,000 per year plus inflation.
Access for HLH members is due to end tomorrow after no agreement could be reached between the two parties.
It will mean that the nearest public swimming is 14 miles away in Grantown at the Craig MacLean Sports Centre.
There has been a lot of anger amongst users and in the wider community over the failure to broker a deal
Gordon Fraser, deputy chairman and group managing director of Macdonald Hotels & Resorts said: "We are hugely disappointed that we have been unable to reach a reasonable, sustainable solution to this unfortunate situation.
"We were very keen to continue to support the High Life scheme but were simply unable to make the numbers add up.
"We explained in detail to the council at several meetings that the resort’s costs had rocketed by over £1 million in the last 12 months due to increases in wages, energy bills and rates.
"Our rates bill alone, which goes directly back to the council, has increased by 55% compared with our bill in 2017- that’s £214,500 in additional rates alone.
"Energy costs are also up by 23% and the minimum wage has increased by 17%.
"It’s clear when taking these huge increases in our costs into account that the council’s offer of an inflation-only increase on the High Life contract was simply unacceptable.
"We were so keen to reach a deal that we agreed in principle to a compromise with the council which would have seen individual High Life members pay £1.50 for each visit and families £3.
"However, on further detailed examination it was clear that these charges would not have covered our costs and we proposed respective charges of £2 per single guest and £4 per family visit, which is significantly less than our original proposal.
"We offered the council a one-year deal with the prospect of renewing it on an ongoing basis and are extremely disappointed that the council rejected it, but given the massive hike in our own costs we were simply unable to swallow the council’s proposed fee structure.
"This is a terrible shame as it is the local people who will lose out but we have to ensure, that for the sake of our 300 employees and to maintain the enormous economic benefit the resort provides to Aviemore, that our finances are sustainable for the long term.
"As a gesture of goodwill, we intend to maintain free access for Aviemore Primary schoolchildren to continue their school swimming lessons three times per week on a like-for-like basis and we hope the council will agree to this proposal."
More on this story into today's Strathy
