I feel obliged to share some feedback I’ve just sent to the Sportspark regarding their recently reinstated parking barrier entry/exit system:
Dear Sportspark,
Please please PLEASE can you sort out the ticket validation system for the car park. It’s quite simply ridiculous that you have to queue and wait for a receptionist to validate your ticket before you can leave. Yesterday evening myself and at least a dozen others spent nearly TEN minutes waiting for a receptionist to become available just so we could get our tickets validated. I could hear a group of women in front of me berating the system and another man next to me actually asked me “is this really the way to get out of the car park?”
I’ve visited plenty of leisure centres and nowhere have I had to wait like this to get out. I understand that students abusing the parking facilities is a problem, but how is it that if you park in the main car park you can self-validate your token using the machine on the wall opposite reception, but you can’t self-validate for the front car park? Am I not seeing the difference here?
I use the Sportspark about 6 times a week and often at ‘peak’ times. This is already becoming a nightmare and I guarantee I’m not alone in my frustrations so please URGENTLY look into this as what you have now is NOT a solution, it’s just winding up your paying customers.
Thanks,
Will.
Okay it’s not the most exciting of topics, but I think the Sportspark is a great facility and a real asset to Norwich, especially as I’m lucky enough to live within jogging distance (weather permitting, of course) and so I use the facilities as often as I can.
For most of the year the barrier system has been broken – looks like someone, err, failed to negotiate their car around the ticket entry machine, and granted getting a space at peak time could be a bit of a nightmare, but at least once you were safely parked up you knew getting out would be a breeze. Now the car park gets just as full (so it’s fair to say it isn’t illegal student parking causing the issue anyway) but now you have to cut your training session short to allow time for queuing at reception to get your ticket validated.
I hope I’m not the only one complaining about this and that Sportspark might actually do something about it – certainly judging from the throng of uhappy customers I stood with last night, I am not alone in seeing how ridiculous the system is. It’s not the receptionists fault at all, I can see they’re busy dealing with the queue of customers trying to get in but I suspect until things change they’re going to get a lot of stick from angry, exhausted customers who just want to go home after their training session.
