So I had an interesting experience at Hazel Grove last night.
My Life Leisure membership is a "Flexi" one that - when I joined - allowed me to swim at Marple, Grand Central and Avondale. But not Hazel Grove and Romiley. Goodness knows how they came up with this package, but whatever. It was £60 a year cheaper and suited me at the time.
When Marple closed we were told we could use Romiley - as I know many people do - and Hazel Grove. And for the last 15 months that's what I've been doing with my existing package. Romiley have always let me in without fuss. About nine months ago, Hazel Grove pointed out my membership wasn't valid there, but quickly relented once I said I was a member at Marple. Other than that, they've been fine. Essentially it was a free upgrade.
Last night I went to Hazel Grove as I normally do on a Tuesday evening. And got told I needed to pay. But I'm a member at Marple I said. There's no pool there any more.
"They're changing the access", I was told. "I think you need to change your membership now. They've sent a letter out."
"Not to me they haven't," I replied. Because they haven't sent me anything. And she didn't have any concrete information on anything.
"Well I'll let you in this time and get the membership team to get in touch if you need to change anything."
And so I got my swim. And pulled a muscle in my leg but that's another matter.
I haven't heard anything at all from Life Leisure today, and I'm still not clear whether she'd just misunderstood some internal memo or they are planning on changing access to either Hazel Grove, Romiley or both.
From my point of view, unless they actually tell me this in writing I'm not going to be in the mood to give them any extra cash willingly. They've been allowing people like me to use Hazel Grove for the last 18 months. So as far as I'm concerned after that time, they need to communicate changes formally to me. I'm sure their t&cs allow them to change with notice, but they would need to communicate it! But I mention this just in case anyone else is in the same situation as me who uses Hazel Grove regularly, and who may also get this strange conversation.