"Up to £1.5m will be spent replacing failed chillers at a city centre ice rink, a council has said.

Oxford City Council owns Oxford Ice Rink and had expected the chillers, which are critical to the rink's functioning, to last until 2032.

Temporary chillers are costing the authority £1,600 a week and new permanent chillers could be installed within six months, according to the authority.

Serco runs leisure services, including the ice rink, for the council but it only has to pay the first £100,000 for key equipment and the council must pay the rest."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c87lznyjv28o.amp

Posted by Jackster22

7 comments

  2. Here’s an idea.

    How about the bright spark who gave away all the profits of the ice rink to serco whilst ensuring they pay almost non of the costs makes up the difference?

    Maybe instead of paying 1.5mil gift to serco the council could pay a few thousand to some lawyers end the contract and hire in house compotent people to run it….

  4. Why is it always SERCO.

    Christ. Just stick to ruining food in the armed forces and hospitals.

  5. Well yea chillers and ice rinks are expensive, nationalist the loses and privitise the profits as usual

  6. Cyclical replacement of mission critical chiller plant is much more economically viable than ‘do nothing, get caught with a massive temporary bill, then panic replace in full as capital works’

  7. Sums dont add up there. Temporary equipment will always be more expensive than a permanent solution so the idea that they could run on a temporary solution for 18 years and not be worse off is bonkers.

    We hired huge walk in chillers for 6 months and that was the cutover point to install a permanent solution.

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