When did your council last do a big infrastructure spend?

[Mishmashs]

On leisure?

I’m in an area where the leisure centre was built in the early 80s, with 25m pool added early 90s. Some of the centre (two squash courts and other rooms) has been shut off for months due to the RAAC/crumbling concrete. No sign of it being sorted anytime soon. The next town along’s pool was built 1992. It’s all very dated and I heard anecdotally membership numbers are well down which then impacts on the fitness instructors they can hire etc.

My parent’s nearest city (Perth) was facing the closure of its big leisure centre (with flumes) along with two others and their replacement with a new centre but lacking the ice rink, bowling and pool with slides etc that would go.

where we used to live (east London) the council did build and open a new centre around 2020 with huge trampoline, clip and climb and soft play plus pools and replaced the aging ice rink.

i can’t imagine a ‘tropical world paradise’ with slides would be built today - are they a thing of the past?

That's such a good point, there two local to us have both closed. One not replaced and one replaced with just a normal pool

Ours was demolished back in the early 90s and is now a sainsbury's.

All that's left are private gyms and one council run leisure centre attached to a school which has seen its best days.

Oh and the dry ski slope about 45 mins away was built in the 70s. That’s not council run though. Makes me think all the pool slide/flume manufacturers must be sitting twiddling their thumbs!

In the last 20 years we have had a new library (this also involved making a space for a roman mosaic), council offices and leisure centre. They are all next to each other and part of the plot was sold off to developers who converted one of the original council buildings into flats.

We are in Bath and North East Somerset.

Some years ago the council used a huge amount of money to refurbish a council block including playgrounds etc. It is such a better place to live now.

We tend to take the children to Butlins (day trips) or centre parcs etc for their waterslides. I feel so lucky now that our local leisure centre had them when I was a child. It makes swimming much more appealing

Our local pool does have an inflatable obstacle course they get out, but our children refuse to go since they started making everyone wear life jackets (they used to do a swim test)

I remember sessions as a children where the pool would get out loads of foam floats and little inflatables but I haven't seen any pools that do that now (apart from for tiny children)

Ours built two leisure centres with gym/running track places, one with a plain pool (no slides) in the last 10 years, but the main pool with a wave machine/slides etc was built in 1973 and is falling apart.

I wonder why they’ve gone out of fashion? Kids love the slides and wave pools! Maybe just too expensive to run and if they have an option to do an ‘add on’ to a standard leisure centre with pool it seems to be more common to do a trampoline park or large soft play.

Our county council want to close the squash courts at the very tired leisure centre which obviously isn't going down well with those who play. They want to refurbish but squash courts aren't part of the plan. The pool has never had anything more than a standard offering.

Our local town council is responsible for our wonderful park and lake rather than the county council. They do an amazing job and have invested substantial amounts and have a partnership with the national Tennis organisation to fund fabulous new courts which are cheap for adults and free for children. We had free kayaking on the lake for children at half term. There was a skate event last week at the very popular skate park and a new, incredibly popular, Splash pad and play equipment. Music in the refurbished bandstand every Saturday in the summer plus markets and full day festivals. It certainly draws people into our town and definitely brings in revenue. We are very lucky.

Not for years, but the council say they have better things to spend money on, which is probably right. There are plenty of private facilities around here though.

@fussychica that all sounds wonderful!

Our council have spent loads in the last few years, including a new leisure centre, but they are now bankrupt so maybe it wasn't the best idea! It's also worth noting that the new facility is a standard lane pool plus a gym and studios for classes, and is profit making, whereas the older facility with a leisure pool (slides, wave machine etc) as well as the lane pool makes a significant loss each year (the council were subsidising it but can now longer afford to)

Our council spends a lot on leisure facilities and has had multiple projects on the go for years. 20+ years ago we got several new leisure centres, most with pools, and a few existing ones were refurbished and have been repeatedly updated. The seafront has had a huge amount of ongoing regeneration and an outdoor play area is one of the current projects.

There’s also a huge amount of regeneration in the city centre with an outdoor events space and currently building a Culture House. There’s also a new footbridge which will link the city centre to a new cultural area on the opposite side of the river and the football stadium.

Our local pool is franchised out

it cost £6.80 to attend for swim with dc

i travel 8 miles to another city to use the pool which is nicer for £3.50 and soft play included

I think I live where you used to live (Walthamstow?) and I think the council just contracts everything out to Better, so everything is available but painful to access.

I think they got a whack of money for sport coming up to the 2012 Olympics?

Our London council rebuilt our local leisure centre, completed in 2021 and cost about £54m. It has a leisure pool with big slide and lots of smaller splash featured, a smaller training pool and a larger pool for lane swimming. Some larger spaces for badminton, gymnastics, football, a small soft play and fitness classes. It's a nice centre, very airy and clean. It's a Better gym. A new school was built around the same time and the old leisure centre site is having flats built on it. It's next to a medium sized park which had a good new playground built last year.

Well they've just started work on turning the dual carriageway through the centre of town back into a single carriageway so there can be a nice walking and cycle area alongside the road instead.

It's caused a lot of local controversy, very few people seem to want it, it's costing a lot of money (although I think most of it came from a grant), the roads have already been chaos and the work is planned to last around 18 months.

We've just had a big new leisure centre built - think it opened a couple of months ago.

@TheYearOfSmallThings thats right, I do not miss the Better booking system! So painful. I think there was legacy money from the Olympics being held in the borough.

It’s good some councils are pushing on with leisure sector developments. My current council is £450m in debt so I won’t hold my breath re the current centre getting its badly needed update.