Leaky roof shuts sports hall at £9m showpiece gym

The News has received a number of complaints from users of the showpiece facility who have noticed an increasing amount of buckets springing up in the premises - to catch drips from the ceiling.

And the problem has been deemed serious enough for management to CLOSE one of the most popular facilities - the multi-purpose sports hall.

Last month council bosses were proud to unveil the upgraded complex which also includes martial arts and fitness studios, a beauty salon and a soft play area.

The investment represents one of the most sizeable contributions to Cumbernauld's leisure services for several years and aims to compete with privately owned facilities in the area.

But it would appear that the building cannot claim to be watertight.

One gym user told the News: "There are buckets everywhere. What is the point of spending that kind of money if the roof is letting in?

"I don't know if there has been something wrong with the installation of the flat roof but this has to be sorted out because there is obviously a serious problem here," he added.

When the News discussed the issue with NLC, a spokesperson admitted that there was a problem - but this was NOT the result of a structural fault with roofing.

He said: "Our new sports centre at Broadwood has proved to be an outstanding success, with record levels of users taking advantage of its state of the art facilities. Unfortunately, however, we have identified an issue with water ingress into the main sports hall.

"The recent severely cold weather has prevented our contractors from accessing the roof to carry out temporary repairs. However, that process is now complete and the next rainfall will determine the success of those repairs," said the spokesperson.

"Our contractor has engaged the British Research Establishment to carry out an independent investigation into any potential defect in the roofing materials.

"NLC, North Lanarkshire Leisure – who operate the facility – and our contractor are all fully committed to resolving these issues as quickly as possible so that our customers can have full access to one of the finest facilities in Scotland," he added.