Members of Derry City and Strabane council leisure facilities are being asked to contact their respective centres to discuss refunds following the recent UNITE the Union strike which impacted many council services.

At the full meeting of council, SDLP Councillor Rory Farrell asked if council officials had a process in place to reimburse people who couldn’t access the leisure facilities.

Director of Health and Community, Karen McFarland explained: “We are asking all of our gym members to contact the leisure centres directly where their membership options, depending on the package, will be discussed.

“If you have a direct debit collection, rather than go through a refund process we are looking to reduce the next Direct Debit collection by the level of funding the users have been disadvantaged for.