Sport & Leisure Award
Awarded to the local authority project judged to have increased the uptake of sports and leisure participation in the area through the provision of first class facilities and innovative activities/promotional campaigns.
2010 Winner: Cheltenham Borough Council
Leisure@cheltenham provides the majority of sport and recreation activities as part of the Cheltenham Borough Council Wellbeing and Culture Division. The service offers a wide range of first class facilities incorporating Prince of Wales Stadium, Cricket Hall, 3 Pools, Halls, Health & Fitness and Racquet Sports.
The main facilities suffered catastrophic loss due to flooding in July 2007. A service review and rebuild commenced, reopening in September 2008. The refurbishment and new business model sought to ensure competitiveness within the health and fitness market whilst guaranteeing the provision of targeted activity programmes for children, young people, the over 50’s, women and new partnerships with local PCT to provide a comprehensive medical referral and rehabilitation programme.
During the rebuild period a temporary health and fitness provision was built in the main car park. Services continued to be delivered from the stadium and non essential staff were redeployed across the council. This enabled a foundation to be established from which to relaunch the service in the autumn of 2008.
Extensive consultation with customers, employees and trust operators with assistance from Alliance Leisure and insurers Zurich Municipal enabled the business model and plan, staffing structures, services, ICT infrastructure and branding to be designed to give a best fit possible.
Core new activities include the provision of affordable activities for target groups. These include free swimming for accompanied children under 16 years, a range of fitness, aquatics, exercise to music and sports to concessionary groups and the expansion of the active life 50+ scheme.
The other aspect of the work was to secure the recovery of the business core products - memberships, learn to swim and school swimming programmes. All the activities are offered in new first class facilities, providing customers with a modern and comfortable environment in which to enjoy them.
The £200,000 redevelopment of the cricket hall included new flooring, doors and cricket netting and a full internal re-fit of changing facilities. The hall is one of only a handful of indoor facilities in the UK which provides specialist cricket performance characteristics.
The overall programme was delivered within budget and on time. Business recovery was strong and targets exceeded expected levels. The challenges ahead are to secure increased partnerships with other public, sporting and charitable bodies to co-operate and deliver sustainable services promoting health and wellbeing.
Commended
St Edmundsbury Borough Council
Gloucester City Council
