Residents hit back at decision to close Stourbridge's Crystal Leisure Centre cafe

The café at the Crystal Leisure Centre in Stourbridge will close its doors next month due to “current financial pressures”.

According to emails seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the cafe is forecast to lose approximately £55,000 this year.

But residents say visitors and staff at the centre “don’t deserve this rotten treatment".

Paul Wassell, who regularly uses the cafe, said: “I take my kids for swimming lessons every week and use the cafe during and after their lessons. The staff are so friendly and helpful – they don’t deserve this rotten treatment.”

Other residents said the cafe had not been given the chance to prosper.

Rachel Priestley said: “We would have used the cafe but it was never open when we were there and when it was it didn’t seem to be run well.

“No cafe will do well when customers can’t buy anything. It’s a captive audience when people are there to watch their kids and then people leaving after exercise would like something healthy, it should be able to do really well.”

Emails seen by The Local Democracy Reporting Service say that it’s not only the Crystal Leisure Centre cafe that is failing.

The cafés at Duncan Edwards Leisure Centre and Halesowen Leisure Centre are apparently also losing money - but the council are more optimistic about their ability to turn a profit.

A spokesperson from Dudley Council, speaking in an email, said “The cafés at Duncan Edwards Leisure Centre and Halesowen Leisure Centre also ‘lose’ money however, they are considered to be in the right location (ground floor) and have only been open approximately 12 months.

“In short, they haven’t had the opportunity to try new methods to make the cafés profitable. With regards to promotion of the Crystal Cafe, there is signage within the centre explaining where the café is located however, even with additional signs, leaflets, notices etc it is not considered possible to clear the £55k loss.

“As a simple calculation, to clear the loss would require an additional 11,000 customers each spending on average £5. I regret that we are having to close the café but the decision is considered necessary for financial reasons.”

Councillor Cat Eccles, who represents Wollaston and Stourbridge Town ward where the leisure centre is located, said: “The Café Crystal has been abandoned by the Conservatives on Dudley Council. When they moved it upstairs, parents were able to use it while watching their children in the pool. However, it was not promoted well to centre users in its new location’’.