A 79-YEAR-OLD great grandmother and fitness fanatic has slammed changes to SwindonCard discounts after the price of her weekly Zumba class doubled.

Margaret Hayward, of Nythe, has been attending the class at the Swindon Council-run Dorcan Leisure Centre for three years. But when she went to her regular Zumba Gold Over 50s class on Thursday she was stunned to find the price had gone up from £1.50 to £3 for a concession – just 15p less than the non-concession price.

It comes after the council made changes to the level of discounts available for current SwindonCard holders, which came in to effect on Tuesday, ahead of a move towards the new Leisure in Swindon card.

“I was so incensed when I came to pay and found it had doubled,” said Margaret, a great-grandmother of three.

The new system has scrapped the second concession level, which offered over-75s up to 70 per cent discount at off-peak times.

Margaret was among a fifth, or around 6,800, of the 34,000 SwindonCard holders, to benefit from the second concession level and she feels the price increases will hit pensioners hardest.

“A lot of the ladies were complaining about the price rise but they said apparently it had been on the table for a while,” said Margaret, who started keep fit classes when she recovered from non-Hodgkin lymphoma a decade ago. “None of us knew anything about it. I went to pay expecting it to be £1.50 like it was the week before until they said it was £3 – I was so angry I had a job to perform my Zumba.

“I appreciate there has to be price rises but not for it to double. I was thinking of going twice a week but now I’m seriously considering not going anymore.

“I started keeping fit after I retired and beat the cancer when I was 70 and go to dance classes regularly. I’ve always been pretty active and I really enjoyed the Zumba.

“It was the golden years one so it was for the older ladies and so this is really going to have an impact on people of my age group.”

Coun Keith Williams (Con, Shaw), cabinet member for leisure, said: “Historically some people have been getting exceptionally good value but unfortunately in response to budget pressures we cannot continue offering that.

“The class is still very good value for money and we have reduced the price of the card to make it more accessible for people of all ages.

“People have to appreciate the true cost of these things and the difficulty is do we continue operating a class like that which is not viable based on the amount we were charging or do we look to charge a more realistic price for it.

“Inevitably there will be winners and losers under the new scheme, but we have tried to minimise the impact on those groups whose concessions are reducing, while at the same time provide a more attractive offer for families.”