Guest article-Freedom Leisure
Leisure centres in Wrexham have beaten the competition and taken gold at the recent Freedom Leisure Awards Ceremony.
Wrexham came out on top to win Area of the Year and, to top it off, Waterworld also made a splash by winning the best Leisure Centre across Wales and the North of England.
Freedom Leisure are a not-for-profit leisure trust who operate over 100 leisure and cultural venues across England and Wales. Working in partnership with Wrexham County Borough Council they operate nine leisure centres across Wrexham including Waterworld, Gwyn Evans, Chirk and Queensway Stadium.
Colleagues from across Wrexham representing all the centres recently gathered at Waterworld to receive the award from Ivan Horsfall-Turner, Chief Executive Officer of Freedom Leisure, and were delighted to also welcome Cllr. Beverley Parry-Jones, Wrexham Council lead member for leisure to the event.
Cllr Parry-Jones said: “Having access to modern and good quality leisure facilities is important for community health and wellbeing, so it’s great for us to be able to say that we have some of the best facilities in the country right here in Wrexham.”
Richard Milne, Freedom Leisure’s Area Manager for Wrexham said; “I am delighted for Wrexham to win this award. We have fantastic facilities and amazing colleagues who work tirelessly every day to improve lives through leisure. We look forward to welcoming even more of the Wrexham community into our award-winning centres over the coming days and months.”
Since 2016 when the partnership began, there has been significant investment at all the leisure centres including gym refurbishments, improved energy efficiency measures including the installation of pool covers and an additional four 3G pitches.
Across Wrexham there are nearly 3,000 children on the award-winning Learn to Swim programme being taught the life skill of swimming every week and over a million visits every year to the centres with customers enjoying a variety of fitness classes, swimming and gym sessions ensuring the local community in Wrexham stay active to improve both their physical and mental health and wellbeing.
