Just a heads up that Guildford is getting a new pad this coming week; http://www.guildfordspectrum.co.uk/news/2019/05/14/ice-closures/Also Swindon's pad is scheduled to be redone at the end of the June.
So a notice appeared this week confirming the Swindon rink closure for "essential maintenance & replacement of the ice pad the rink will be closed from Monday 24th June to Monday 8th July 2019"I have attached a copy of the notice to this post for information.they advise following their Facebook & Twitter to keep up to date with the works.Hope this info is useful.(also need to work on my picture editing.....)
Looks like the driver is now taking the skaters to Oxford for the Saturday morning patches whilst Swindon is closed (so only a little lie in, up at 5.30 am instead of 4 am) and so lucky to be midway between 2 ice rinks so they can keep skating.
I so wish Plymouth would do this. All we hear is, "Oh, we can't do a proper resurface because the ice is too thick, so we can only scrape the snow off the top..."
Gillingham is the same! They haven't even painted the walls in the 21 years that my sister and I have been skating there. Our ice is always bumpy because they don't resurface before patch and the ceiling sweats in the night.
Back when Hemel Hempstead's chiller wasn't so reliable, they used to boast that they had the 'freshest' ice in the country!