Report for Kenegie Manor.  March 2016

The new owners, McKinnon Jardine Leisure Ltd took over the running of Kenegie at the beginning of November and immediately began work on trying to improve the site with a very limited budget. Ed Newbold has retained almost all the previous staff, and has employed them during the winter for painting and general tidying up around the site. A Christmas Fair was held in December to try to encourage locals to come.

All the outside of reception/ maintenance and housekeeping has been decorated, with the new purple theme for facia boards and signage. New signs are in place at the main entrance plus around the park. The bar, reception, toilets and main entrance have all been painted and some new pictures added. In the pool area, a coffee shop is now open, and new dehumidifiers have been purchased as there was a big problem with condensation, and they have helped.

Paula is now in charge of food and the bar, and now a takeaway menu is available. Roast Sunday lunches are also on offer.

The swimming pool is now open to locals at a cost of £2.80 for adults and £1.80 for children. This has proved extremely popular, so I feel that we all need to keep an eye on this to ensure it is not so busy that our guests cannot use this important facility whenever they wish to. All guests of owners who are not using the Kenegie letting scheme will be charged £18.00 per week to use the pool. (Still free if you let with Kenegie). Please note this may be charged directly to your account so please inform Kenegie if you wish them to charge your guests directly. Locals may also use the tennis courts £3per hour or putting green £1 adult or 50p child.

Ed Newbold looked into the possibility of putting WiFi around the site, but that has been ruled out for the time being because of the cost involved.

The numbers for the parking spaces have still not been done yet, nor has all the painting in Old Court.

The web site is finally up and running but as yet there is no facility for owners to check their bookings online.

Overall, there has been a big push to ‘tidy everything up’ and things are definitely looking better. A lot of effort is going into attracting locals to Kenegie and I have been told that the money from that will all go back into improvements for Kenegie as a whole. One big disappointment is that the dreadful, faded linen is still in use.

Joy Polglase