Author: Andrew Taylor

Mid Sussex leisure centres will reopen on Tuesday 1 September.

A special Council meeting took place on Wednesday 19 August to formally approve the new operating arrangements to ensure the leisure centres could re-open as soon as possible.

The decision to open the Kings leisure centre in East Grinstead, The Dolphin leisure centre in Haywards Heath and The Triangle leisure centre in Burgess Hill follows months of negotiations with Places Leisure, who operate the centres on behalf of the Council.

Since they were asked to close the leisure centres in March, Places Leisure have worked closely with Public Health England and the trade body ukactive to ensure the centres are able to reopen safely in line with government guidance. Councillors agreed that the Council would support reopening costs which are forecast as being potentially £2.5m in the year to April 2021.

As customers return to the leisure centres, they will notice lots of new measures in place to keep them, and leisure centre staff, safe. Signage will be in place to help people follow social distancing, there will be hand sanitising and cleaning stations, the number of people taking part in each activity will be reduced and cleaning regimes will be greatly enhanced.

Customers will be asked to book all activities in advance via the Places Locker app or the Places Leisure website. There will be a 15-30 minute changeover period between each session to allow customers time to exit their activity safely and Places Leisure staff to clean the facilities.

Councillor Jonathan Ash-Edwards, Leader of Mid Sussex District Council said: “The Coronavirus pandemic has had a profound impact on leisure across the country and Mid Sussex’s leisure centres were not immune from this. We have worked hard with Places Leisure to find a way to reopen our three centres in a Covid-secure and financially sustainable way.

“The Council is making available a huge financial support package for leisure in Mid Sussex, potentially £2.5 million in this financial year, a level of subsidy which was not required before Coronavirus and without which the leisure centres would not reopen. Given the huge sums of money involved, which this year will come from the Council’s reserves, it is right that we have taken time to thrash out the best possible deal.

“Our leisure centres are an important part of our community and it’s fantastic that they will now be able to reopen on 1^st Sepember. I know how keen people are to get back to the gym, exercise classes and the swimming pool and I would like to thank residents for their patience while we negotiated this support package.

“Once the leisure centres are open, I hope that residents will make use of them. They are safe and the more they are used, the less the burden will be on the taxpayer. I hope that the reopening on 1^st September will be another important step towards a more normal way of life”.

Steve Warriner, Places Leisure Area Manager said: “We’re delighted that The Dolphin, Kings Centre and The Triangle will be re-opening on 1 September and we look forward to welcoming customers back to our gyms, leisure centres and swimming pools.

“You will be able to find details of our opening times, customer FAQs and a list of all our available activities on our website at www.placesleisure.org/reopening/midsussex.”

Thank you to the 17,455 residents who took part in our coronavirus survey back in May. We asked you to provide feedback on how the coronavirus was affecting you so we could better understand the situation in West Sussex. Below is a snapshot from the results:

Community connection:  48% of our survey respondents said the coronavirus pandemic had a positive impact on how connected they felt to their local community. A further 28% of respondents reported no impact, whilst around 23% reported a negative impact.

Your financial situation: 33% (around a third of all those participating in our survey) said their financial situation had been negatively impacted by the pandemic.  Just over a third (36%) of our respondents reported a negative impact on their job.

Mental health: Almost half the people in our survey (49%) said they experienced a negative impact on their mental health, and 30% said they were concerned about the impact of coronavirus on their mental health in the future, and 6% said they needed help or support with their mental health but were not getting it. However, 15% were not at all concerned about their mental health and 12% of respondents reported that the pandemic had resulted in a positive impact.

Access to healthcare/medicine/dental care: More than half of respondents (57%) reported a negative impact on access to healthcare, medicine or dental care and 53% reported being concerned about the impact of the pandemic on their access to these services in the future. However, 31% said they experienced no impact, and 5% of respondents reported on a positive impact on their access to healthcare, medicine or dental care.

Education: Just under a third of our respondents (31%) reported a negative impact on their child’s/children’s education or schooling and 32% reported being concerned about the impact of coronavirus on education in the future.  21% reported no impact on their child’s education/schooling, but around 4% reported a positive impact.  34% commented they did not know or said this question did not apply to them.

Lockdown activities: Overall, gardening was the most often reported ‘lockdown activity’ reported by our respondents (65%), followed by spending time on social media and reading books (both 52%), although there were variations by age. For example, whilst all groups reported spending time on social media within their top three activities, gardening was the top activity for those aged 45 and over (64-73% across those age groups), helping their children to learn at home was the most often reported activity for 35-44 year olds (69%), baking/cooking tops for 25-34 year olds (69%) and watching tv/streaming and time on social media came a close second (70% and 68% respectively) for those aged 16-24.

More of our residents are using online video meeting software:  72% of you told us you had started using online video meeting software, or had increased your use of it since the pandemic began.

Please visit our survey results page to see the full results and the actions we are taking.

Finally, a reminder that last week we launched our new campaign to Keep West Sussex Safe which has information online about what we can all do to reduce the spread of the virus. Our pages are being updated frequently so please take a look. 

Thank you for your continued support.