Sporting excellence

In the run up to the London 2012 Olympics, there's been a concerted focus on providing high-quality sporting facilities that both nurture future sport talent and aid in combatting rising obesity. As Bob Rendell explains, this can present a challenge to owners

In the wake of the decision to make London the host for the 2012 Olympic games, the demand for world-class sports and leisure facilities has increased dramatically. While today’s local authorities may have a particular vision for their proposed leisure development, the leisure operator actually running the building may have rather different priorities in order to make the centre economically viable. Solving these competing needs is the key to removing the obstacles in order to provide the country with world-class sporting facilities.

Many leisure centres are run by an external leisure provider. Whilst the outline scheme design is likely to have been designed by an architect to the procuring local authority’s brief, the team running the building is often completely different to the team involved in the early design decisions. For the contractor, this poses the challenge of how to coordinate the process of design and construction to meet the commercial aspirations of the end operator, while remaining true to the brief drawn up to meet the needs of the surrounding community.

Major building facilities such as a swimming pool and sports hall need to be balanced with the gym and fitness elements. Modern centres also aspire to become community hubs, including cafés and restaurant facilities, along with provisions for crèche and meeting spaces. That’s why it is so important to involve the building operator in detailed design decisions as early as possible.

For contractors, the challenges continue after the initial design decisions have been made, when turning the drawings and specifications provided by scheme designs into a robust building that meets the requirements of the client, leisure operators and sporting bodies. Building facilities for elite athletes further increases the challenge.

These however can be overcome by forging strong relationships with the design professionals and creating a team ethos based upon mutual respect and positive contributions from all parties. This close interaction and teamwork is vital to delivering a successful leisure project—whether for the local community or elite athletes.

Meeting the requirements of Sports England and other sporting bodies requires access to an in-depth knowledge base and an established supply chain for specialist products and materials. At the same time, price is always a crucial issue. An experienced contractor can bring this specialist expertise and supply chain to a project, helping to control costs while fulfilling the requirements of even the most exceptional environments.

The all year round opening of leisure facilities and the intensity of use require the specifications and detailing within the building to be robust and easily maintained. Control of the construction process is critical to avoid long-term defects, particularly when considered in the aggressive environment to be found in a pool hall or impact likely to occur with a sports hall. The ability to deliver a quality product is recognised by awards such as the Built in Quality Award from the Local Building Control Authority, which Leadbitter have received for the construction of the Solihull Leisure Centre scheme.

Leadbitter is currently bringing its experience to bear at the £25m Hillingdon Sports and Leisure Complex, funded by the London Borough of Hillingdon, together with a Heritage Lottery Fund Grant. The Grade II listed Uxbridge Lido, which originally opened in 1935, is undergoing a complete transformation to create a state-of-the-art leisure complex. The existing outdoor pool will be restored to its former glory, retaining the Grade II listed architectural features of the Lido, while creating a new 50 metre indoor swimming pool with a movable floor, allowing the space to be used as two 25 metre pools and the depths to be altered according to use. The result will be a modern, competition-standard facility fit for the country’s 2012 Olympic training.

Away from the Olympic arena, the Government is aiming to encourage everybody, especially children, to become more active in an effort to tackle the country’s growing obesity problem. Unfortunately, selling off schools’ playing fields in the 1990s has resulted in a shortage of facilities for young people, as well as the wider community. Simply providing the traditional facilities for football, tennis, swimming and so on is not enough to get whole communities active. There also needs to be a focus on providing wider leisure facilities, such as dance studios, health and fitness studios, martial arts dojos, steam rooms and saunas.

As a result, there is no such thing as a typical leisure facility. The only common factor is the need for all facilities to be flexible in their usage. Incorporating features like movable walls into the design to allow for different uses by various sectors of the community throughout the day has become a given on nearly every leisure centre project.

A good example of a facility with a wide range of leisure options requiring diverse specialist expertise is the White Horse Leisure and Tennis Centre at Abingdon, which Leadbitter constructed on behalf of the Vale of White Horse District Council. This facility includes a 25 metre competition pool, plus a separate teaching pool and toddler area. The huge health and fitness facility includes a sports hall, gymnasium, dance studios and squash courts with movable dividing walls. In addition, the Centre offers a wide variety of tennis facilities, including six indoor acrylic courts, six outdoor clay courts and four outdoor artificial grass courts. This diversity of facilities, which called upon nearly every category of specialist supplier in Leadbitter’s extensive supply chain, has helped the facility achieve twice its planned customer usage target since its completion.

Adaptability of usage applies not only to leisure centres, but to all sports provision, including sports halls belonging to schools, colleges and universities. In tough economic times it is vital that these facilities are available for wider community use, and not just during the academic day, in order to bring in extra revenue streams. For example, at University College Plymouth St Mark and St John (Marjon), the multi-million pound redevelopment of the University’s Sports Centre is expected to provide sports facilities that are among the best in the South West for both students and the community.

The completed first phase, now open to students and the people of Plymouth, features a new triple sports hall with 12 badminton courts. The second phase of the redevelopment, which is due for completion in Spring 2010, involves the construction of a new sports science laboratory, a sports therapy clinic, a 90 station fitness suite and indoor climbing wall, plus the refurbishment of the gymnasium and swimming pool.

With the Government’s recent announcements about cutting public spending, it remains to be seen whether the momentum will be maintained in the development of publicly funded world-class sporting facilities throughout the UK, or whether we will increasingly rely on the excellent sports facilities being developed by schools, colleges and universities to supplement council run leisure centres. Whatever the case, leisure facility builders must continue to develop their expertise and supply chains in order to deliver the level of quality and robustness required by these diverse facilities.