FREE ice-skating will not be made available to children in North Ayrshire, despite a surge in popularity following the Winter Olympics.

Kilwinning Councillor Donald Reid proposed the idea at last week’s meeting of the full council, drawing attention to a recent campaign during the Winter Olympics, which dramatically increased attendance at the Auchenharvie ice rink.

North Ayrshire Council already endorses a free swimming programme for children, as part of an effort to increase access to physical activities and improve the overall health of local young people.

Referring to Auchenharvie’s recent Winter Olympics campaign, Cllr Reid said: “This promotion reduced the cost of attendance by a small margin, resulting in a four fold increase in attendance at a very small increase in costs to North Ayrshire Leisure, and encouraged people to try something they may not normally have thought of.” He put a question to Councillor Alan Hill, cabinet member for community and culture policy and service, asking: “Can the cabinet member advise me if they have investigated the possibilities of extending free skating or reduced price skating for North Ayrshire young people during the school holiday periods when attendance in past has been very low? “This would have health benefits and benefit the wider sporting community like the swimming promotion has.” Cllr Hill said to bring in free skating in summer 2014 would require two new stewards and cost the council £26,000 before marketing, promotion and maintenance costs. This would be in addition to the cost of free summer swimming.

While he said he was “somewhat sympathetic with the proposal”, he argued: “Previous uptake suggests that swimming is a more popular and more widely available option and benefits more children and young people. Potentially, this is something KA Leisure can look at themselves, but we have no budget to fund such an initiative.”