onionbagblog

As an addendum to the Great Lambeth Swimming Swindle, no surprises to see that swimming in the Rotten Borough is never straight forward.

Tempted by a £26 Swim London membership (which bizarrely includes use of the Hackney owned London Fields lido, but *not* the Lambeth owned Brockwell lido,) I decided to cancel my Lambeth GLL swimming membership, which also costs £26 a month. Sometimes I swim outside of Lambeth; with no price difference, the switch in membership package would seem to make sense.

I experienced a few admin teething problems as I asked the GLL man at Clap’ham reception to carry out the transaction. Seems that I can cancel my GLL Lambeth membership face to face, but I can only take out a Swim London membership online.

No worries. I filled in a form to cancel my old card at the desk at Clap’ham, and then cycled back to base to sign up for the new package online.

I wonder why I can’t carry out the new membership application offline, I pondered as I logged on to the GLL website and tried to navigate a menu system that was more like being trapped in Hampton Court maze.

A dozen or so clicks later and I found out why. The £26 a month membership also includes an ‘administration fee’ of £10, plus a ‘pro rata fee’ of £23.90. Both of these charges are hidden away, only revealed once you get towards the end of a tedious online application process.

So by my calculations, the as advertised £26 a month Swim London membership fee actually costs £28.82 a month, once the hidden costs are taken into account. This is something I have mentioned the man from GLL at Clap’ham via email. If he can’t be a***d to deal with me face to face, then the feeling is mutual.

And as for @lambeth_council and its continued pimping out of a public service? More fool them. If running a public swimming scheme is a licence to print money, then maybe the Council would have been better off by keeping the provision in house.

That Clap’ham Users Forum at the end of the month should be lively.