Both of the National Sports Centre swimming pool’s flumes are to shut from tomorrow, Tuesday, while work is carried out to cure a long-standing issue which has closed one since the turn of the year.

The centre’s operators are hopeful that this latest set of work will be finished this week and it will mean both can re-open once completed.

In a statement they said: ‘The NSC flumes will close from Tuesday, October 4 to enable works to be undertaken this week.

‘After these have been completed it is envisaged that both flumes will be able to re-open.

‘To reduce the impact to the NSC’s customers the work has been scheduled to take place out of “normal opening hours” and “through the night”.

‘This will enable the leisure pool and main competition pool to remain open as normal.’

This is the latest in a series of works to be undertaken on the flumes, which finally opened toward the end of last year only for one to close within a matter of weeks after issues were discovered with it, which caused several injuries.

At the time a spokesman for the Department of Education, Sport and Leisure, which runs the facility, said: ‘The closure follows concerns which emerged just before Christmas, that a swimmer’s exit from the flume is not always as smooth as it should be. Consequently, the NSC team has taken the decision to temporarily suspend the flume until more is known.’

It has remained shut since.

The £4.2 million refurbishment leisure pool project has been hit with a number of delays since work to replace the flumes at the Douglas sports centre started in 2017.