A swimming pool on Shetland will remain closed for at least another month – as its maintenance team waits for a set of bolts to arrive from the United States.
Poolside facilities at Lerwick’s Clickimin Leisure Complex will open today for the first time in five weeks.
But the main pool, toddlers’ pool and river area including the flume will remain out of action until mid to late October until permanent repairs to the roof can be carried out.
The closure of the pool has already cost Shetland Recreational Trust £160,000 in repairs and lost income after part of a bolt fell into the pool from its roof last month.
Engineers inspecting the roof of the 20-year-old pool building found the bolts had rusted due to high humidity and temperature and needed replacing.
Trust general manager James Johnston said: “The pool will remain closed but the cafe, health suite, hydrotherapy pool, soft play area and waterside suite will be open to the public.
“These spaces can be open until the contractor is finished, but will then have to close again to allow the scaffolding to come down and the pool to be re-filled before the pool can fully re-open.”
He added the health suite would be offering discounts during this period of disruption.
He also stressed that the all the necessary precautions had been put in place to make sure that the areas open to the public were safe.
The trust has replaced the bolts temporarily while it waits for new tough rust-resistant bolts to be imported from the US.
They said the new bolts would be 400 times as strong as the existing ones, and therefore would probably “outlast the building”.
While the repairs should be complete within three weeks, it will take around one month to dismantle the scaffolding, make the pool area safe and clean up before starting the slow process of filling the pool with 1,000 tonnes of water that has to be heated very slowly to prevent the pool tiles from cracking.