Press Statement: 22 June 2015

At approximately 5:40am on Monday 22nd June a fire broke out in our main Kitchen. Other than one member of Health Club staff who was just arriving, there was no one else in the building at the time.

The Fire Service were quickly on site and their first report to us was that the sprinkler system had done an excellent job in containing the fire, and the firefighting team had quickly been able to extinguish the fire completely.

We are still in the process of gauging the extent of the fire damage to the main kitchen and the surrounding equipment, but it is likely that that particular kitchen will be out of use for quite some time.

The effectiveness of the sprinklers has unfortunately caused water damage to certain areas on the level beneath where the fire occurred, in particular the Aqua Lounge and its adjacent kitchen. Subsequently the Aqua Lounge remains out of use but work has already begun to repair damaged areas. We will be setting up an alternative coffee / café operation as soon as possible.

Lifestyle Health and Fitness Suite was able to re-open as normal this morning, and we remain confident that Waves Leisure Pool will also re-open at around midday today, Tuesday 23rd June.

We are also confident that no forthcoming conferences or events will be affected by the incident, but catering operations will be the main focus of our contingency plans.

Simon Jolly, General Manager of the RICC said
“I would like to say a big thank you for the excellent service and support we received from the Fire Service, both at the time of the fire and throughout the rest of the day whilst the incident was investigated. I’d also like to thank the RICC Team on site yesterday who worked tirelessly on what was obviously a very challenging day”.