City Council secures financial boost for Worcester’s leisure centres

Worcester City Council has successfully secured a grant from Sport England's National Leisure Recovery Fund to help support the re-opening of the city's three leisure centres.

The Council will use the £214,000 grant to continue supporting its leisure partner, Freedom Leisure, in providing a full range of sports and leisure activities to visitors once the lockdown restrictions are lifted.

The grant is part of a much broader package of significant financial support that the Council has provided Freedom Leisure since the beginning of the pandemic in March last year.

Lloyd Griffiths, Corporate Director of Operations, Homes & Communities, said: "Leisure centres play an important role in the health and wellbeing of our residents, so the Council is extremely grateful that its application to the National Leisure Recovery Fund was successful.

"The Council's leisure centres at Perdiswell, Nunnery Wood and St John's provide excellent, well-loved facilities and the Freedom Leisure teams who run them work incredibly hard to make sure people can access a fantastic range of sports and leisure activities.

"This grant, in addition to the package of financial support provided by the Council, will help the centres to recover quickly following the lockdown, ensuring residents can return to our leisure centres when they reopen, helping them to keep fit and healthy."

Ivan Horsfall-Turner, Managing Director at Freedom Leisure, added: "The last year has been a significant challenge for the leisure industry and our role in providing Worcester's communities with access to health, fitness and wellbeing opportunities has never been more important. The funding secured by Worcester City Council will help us to reopen and get back to delivering a vital service to their residents and visitors."

Freedom Leisure runs three leisure centres on behalf of Worcester City Council, at Perdiswell, Nunnery Wood and St John's. In line with the Government's road map out of lockdown, they are all preparing to reopen on 12 April.

Find out more about the facilities on the Freedom Leisure website.