Outdoor enthusiasts, who organised coaching sessions at Teesdale Leisure Centre’s climbing wall prior to the complex’s renovations last year are keen to gauge the level interest in their possible return.
Boldron-based Rob and Abi Atkinson set up Teesdale climbing club, offering weekly classes for youngsters aged from five through to adults which the couple say were hugely popular.
Since the leisure centre’s reopening, the climbing wall, installed in 2008 and paid for by Teesdale District Council and County Durham Primary Care Trust, has remained closed.
Rob said: “We had just started the classes before the renovations. We managed to do five weeks of classes and on average we had about 30 kids a night.
“It was really successful and then the sports centre closed. The centre’s reopened but the climbing wall is still closed.”
He added: “There are a a number of reasons why it hasn’t reopened one of which was years of low usage.
“I think one of the reasons for this is because they didn’t really change the routes on the wall to keep people coming back and that is important, but there were also no set times for the climbing wall being open and we would like to change that.”
To identify whether there is an appetite for resuming the climbing classes the couple, who own and run an outdoor activities company, organised an online poll on social media.
Rob added: “I had 205 people comment saying they would use the climbing wall, and I just wanted to know how many more people are truly interested.”
Abi added: “There are a lot of people who have had to lift share to get through to the next nearest climbing wall at Newton Aycliffe and that shows commitment. The fact that people in Barnard Castle and the wider area are lift sharing to go an hour round trip for a climbing wall shows there is a need.”
Rob said: “Imagine how many more people would attend if there was a climbing wall close to home.
“There has never been a facility where people can go and learn to climb and our suggestion is not only to run coaching sessions but also run sessions for people to learn how to climb independently so they can visit by themselves.
“We’re not asking the leisure centre to run the sessions. We would do that. We would supply the coaches and run the sessions, we’re just asking for them to pay for the safety inspection of the wall.”
He added: “We envisage the sessions being more of a winter thing running from September through to Easter but having them regularly scheduled to build the climbing community.
“We have this asset and it’s not getting used. So, we’d love to hear from the wider community as to whether there is an appetite, not just from youngsters, but from parents, to learn how to climb.”
Anyone who would be interested in the climbing sessions at the leisure centre resuming should email [email protected] to register interest.
