Sport and Physical Activity - the future of Church Farm and Copthall Leisure Centres

We asked

We asked you to share your views on the future of leisure centres in Barnet. Specifically we asked where you wanted to see the new leisure centre, to the north of the borough, built at either Danegrove Playing Field or Victoria Recreation Ground. We also asked what facilities you would most like to see in this facility and the new Copthall. Finally we wanted to understand what other services you could see yourself receiving from your local leisure centre.

You said

The consultation found that residents were very positive about the proposals to re-provide two of the council’s leisure centres. Residents expressed that swimming pools, learner pools, gyms and cafés were the most important facilities to consider whereas sports halls, crèches, climbing walls and diving split opinion.

There was a balance of opinion among residents in the surveys concerning the location of the new facility to the north of the borough with 35% preferring Danegrove; 34% preferring Victoria Recreation Ground; 7% disagreeing with both and 24% not having an opinion on which site should be used. However Victoria Recreation Ground was the overall preferred option in the drop-in sessions, focus groups and written submissions.

65% of residents indicated that they would consider accessing library services from their local leisure facility. Less than half of residents indicated that they would consider accessing GP or pharmacy services, however 60% of residents told us that they would consider receiving health advice from a modern centre.

We did

The results were used to develop a recommendation paper that went to Policy and Resources Committee on December 16th 2015; the recommendations included the location for the new Church Farm Leisure Centre to be located on Victoria Recreation Ground as well as the facilities mixes for both Victoria Recreation Ground and Copthall.

The paper’s recommendations were unanimously agreed upon and the committee gave the project permission to move to the next phase, the project is currently involved in planning the next phase of consultation where residents will be able to see more detailed plans of the new sites.