High demand swamps booking site for council run swimming lessons

The issue was raised by Alliance councillor Peter Lavery, who took the opportunity to praise Council staff for the efforts throughout lockdown but asked for a reason as to why the system crashed on the morning of Monday, September 14.

A member of council’s leisure services department, Martin Toner, explained Council was a “victim of our own success” as almost 2,500 people logged on to book lessons as the system went live that morning.

“Effectively, nearly 2,500 people logged on this morning [Monday] to book their swimming lessons,” said Mr Toner.

“It was the swim school management software we use, CoursePro, that crashed because of the volume of traffic.

“We thought opening early would ensure the volume of traffic would pick up throughout the day. Unfortunately, it was just one of those things that was difficult for us and the software provider to predict.”

Councillor Lavery said he was delighted to hear that demand for swimming lessons was so high across the borough  but was disappointed to hear of the problems with CoursePro.

“Hopefully you will be able to hold them to account for this to ensure it does not happen again,” said Cllr Lavery.

Sinn Fein councillor, Keith Haughian said a number of families had been in touch with him about this issue.

He also asked about those who may have pre-booked and already paid or those who were already in the middle of lessons when lockdown hit.

“These families were told they would have priority but three different people have told me they were not contacted in spite of their children being in the middle of lessons before COVID hit,” said Cllr Haughian.

“I understand how difficult this could be but we need to think about the families who are already out financially.”

Mr Toner explained that officers are aware of the issues.

“The difficulty is moving from one system to another and incorporating it with a third system,” said Mr Toner.

“We will come back with specific issues, we are aware that it has happened. Customers are effectively expecting to us to have them booked on and we are looking at it and hope to have these issues resolved soon.”