Many of our leisure customers will already be aware that both our Crediton and Cullompton leisure sites have been visited my members of the travelling community over the past few days. While our staff initially tried to keep Lord’s Meadow open, for the benefit of our customers, it quickly became apparent that for the safety of our staff and customers the centre had to temporarily close. A clean-up operation continues at Lords Meadow but the centre is open and we would like to thank our staff for ensuring the site reopened as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately the situation is now being repeated at Culm Valley and all the leisure facilities at Culm Valley will remain closed while the visitors remain on site.

We would like to thank all of our customers for their patience over the past few days and apologise for the inconvenience this situation has caused.

The Council is looking at what, if any, steps we can take to prevent such a closure again and considering ways to minimise disruption to our loyal customers, although this is difficult as we need to maintain access to our car parks for our customers. In the meantime the legal route to disperse the travellers on the site is underway.