Mark, your figures do my head in - but then I never was any good at maths. As
proof of this, I realise my own calculation was out a bit - my apologies. 13 May
- 12 August is actually 92 days and not 121 days (duh!). So a total of 4120
visits makes an average of 44 visitors per day. That for a place that is open
about 11 hours a day, seven days a week.

Of the 4120 people who had the joy of the Spa London Experience in the first 3
months only 2344 came from the borough (about 25 per day). The population of
Tower Hamlets is about 200,000. Of course many of those 2344 will be repeat
visitors (I
know, hard to believe that anyone would actually want to go back there). So yes,
the
percentage of TH residents who have visited the joint is definitely less than 2%
and probably less than 1%.

By the way, as regards male/female use, I know it's difficult to extrapolate
exactly what's
going on - it's complicated by the mixed-use day - but since women have 4 days
women-
only sessions and men have only 2 men-only sessions, you would expect female
visitors
to be twice that of men. In fact, women visitors were 2587 and men 1533,
suggesting that
women's days are even more unpopular than men's.

Finally, the number of visitors putting themselves down as Bangladeshi was 0.9%.
When you think that 33% of TH's population is Bangladeshi, 0.9% doesn't seem
like an overwhelming success story. I know I'm not Einstein but I'll stick my
neck out here and guess that an entrance charge of £15 (£17 non-resident) might
be be a little discouraging to some.

And now I want to appeal to everyone who is concerned about what's been going on
to
take a few minutes to email Paul Martindill, acting head of Tower Hamlets
leisure, and tell
him what you think of the council spending all this money to turn the place into
an
exclusive 'spa' that, it transpires, can attract only 44 people a day on
average. I know he'd
love to hear from you and the more people who let him know what they think, the
more
he'll wonder if he shouldn't perhaps do something about it.
Paul.Martindill@...

All the best, Paul M