King's Bastion Leisure Centre - just 1 pin left to go

The new King's Bastion Leisure Centre opened its doors today to the public for the first time.

While the Bowling Alley and Ice Skating Rink elements will be available for use from tomorrow - 1st March. The 2 screen cinema is still being kitted out and will follow later.

Chief Minister Peter Caruana described the facility as something to be proud of during the opening ceremony yesterday evening - before having a shot on one of the 14 adult bowling lanes.



In addition to the 14 adult lanes, there are 4 children's lanes in two of the arched caverns off to the side.

These also features games areas pool/snooker tables and an internet lounge:



The adult bowling has an free standing island bar behind it with the shoe facilities in yet more of the vaults of the historic bastion behind that.



Up stairs the ice rink is currently the most prominent section, however it is to be joined by the new 2 screen cinema very shortly.



The new structure sits in what would have been the open air courtyard of the historic bastion. The 12 million pound project has constructed a state of the art leisure centre without any damage to the historic structure itself.



At the upper level the new structure is linked to the interior of the thick walled bastion by an elevated walk way and mid air seating island standing on top of the bar in the bowling area.



Inside the fortified section there is a wine bar, and a non-alcoholic bar and kids disco area:



The ramparts and fortifications on the sides of the bastion remain open as terraced areas, with cafe facilities and remain in close proximity to the new cinemas and ice rink.

95,000 EUR not enough for gibraltar.net

The domain name "gibraltar.net" has attracted bids of up to 95,000 EUR under auction on domain after-market website sedo.

However that appears to be below the amount sought by the current owner and seller of the domain as the listing was marked as "reserve not met" through to the auction close. The reserve expressed only as a range - 50,000 to 199,999 EUR.

The auction follows the 2007 sale of the name "gibraltar.com" which sold for 360,000 USD when auctioned on sedo.

Airport Fees Finally Land

The Gibraltar Government have finally(!) announced the introduction of revised landing fees at Gibraltar Airport.

The fees, historically collected by the MoD will, following the 2007 agreement between the MoD and GoG, be collected AND set by the Government.

While Gibraltar will always have higher fees than bargain basement airports there was universal consensus that fees needed to come down.

The issue of fees was of course the cover used by Monarch for the cancellation of the Manchester route. Hopefully this will now be reinstated, as the route had a high yield and many would doubt whether even monarch expected to cancel it in their game of chicken over the fees.

The Governments press release is surprisingly light on the actual detail, given it is delayed (was originally expected before Christmas). However they have at least picked a sensible introduction date of the 30th March aviation season change.