Salford City Council has introduced a £31 million ten-year plan to refurbish the city’s sports and leisure centres, in a bid to get people more active.
The plans will see Worsley and Eccles leisure centres receiving a combined investment of £3m worth of upgrades.
Ordsall and Langworthy leisure centres will be combined on a new site to create a £15m state-of-the art facility.
Broughton Leisure Centre will be upgraded with £5m of investment and a new £12m leisure centre would be built in Swinton to replace Swinton and Pendlebury Leisure Centre.
Mark Chew, Director of Leisure for Salford Community Leisure believes: “It’s not just about people working out, it’s about the whole health and wellbeing of the city.
“The more people that are physically active the less opportunity in terms of long term health conditions and less people being taken into hospital as a result of inactivity health issues.”
Physical inactivity costs the city of Salford £5.4m in health costs a year and evidence shows that people who are more active are less likely to suffer from heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes and may live five years longer.
Refitting to get fit
The refurbishment programme has been pulled together by Salford Community Leisure, who operate leisure facilities on behalf of Salford City Council, who have been working with Sport England on the strategic plan for the future to cope with population increases and more demand.
Salford Community Leisure ‘have addressed Salford’s growing population in this plan and the main outcomes would be more people being physically active, better health and wellbeing benefits for the population of the city and less people using NHS services and going into hospitals and to their GPs’.
The plans began in April, with a £1.4 million refurbishment of the 80 year old Worsley Leisure Centre and will continue to progress across Salford’s other leisure centres.
1 week to go… who’s coming to our Open Weekend next Saturday and Sunday? https://t.co/WBnTASf2Gs #WorsleyOpening #AreYouReady pic.twitter.com/j8gHl8P90d
— Salford Community Leisure (SCL) (@SalfordLeisure) December 15, 2018
Councillor Stephen Coen, Executive Support member for Culture and Leisure said: “This is an investment in people as much as an investment in bricks and mortar.
“The more we can encourage and support people to improve or maintain good physical and mental health through first class, affordable facilities the better.
“They benefit, their families benefit and a healthy city reduces demand on cash-strapped public services.”
Worsley’s Leisure Centre will reopen with its brand new facilities on January 2nd, just in time to work off those Christmas indulgences.
The plans are part of a wider scheme across Greater Manchester called Get Moving, which is focused on getting residents of the county fitter and more active.
For more information about how to get involved visit: Get Moving scheme
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