The Sovereign Centre Fun Pool reopens under new GLL management in Eastbourne

The Sovereign Centre Fun Pool reopens under new GLL management in Eastbourne. Joseph Rham, GLL Customer and Communities Director, tells us more.

Transcript

00:00We took over the running of the centre from Eastbourne Borough Council on Tuesday 1st

00:07of April and today we've reopened the fun pool, or leisure pool as we're calling it

00:13in the new customer information, open to the public and hopefully it's nice and busy today

00:19with lots of locals coming back and people using it and having a good time.

00:23Plans going forward are obviously to get the centre back up and running on its feet,

00:29busy, leisure pool busy for the Easter holidays and the summer period. That's kind of the

00:35priority, get customers used to the new way of working. In terms of investment into the

00:41centre, there's a million pounds that's going to be invested in the centre. Lots of that's

00:45going to be around kind of the unseen items, plant equipment, maintenance to make sure

00:53the building's fit for purpose, keeps running, we haven't got the risk of closures hopefully.

00:59But we will do quite a significant refresh of the gym and the health and fitness areas.

01:05So we'll replace all of the cardiovascular equipment with new techno-gym, top of the

01:10range equipment. We'll refresh that area and the changing rooms and we'll just have a re-jig

01:16of the layout in there to make it a bit more customer friendly. So a significant improvement

01:22hopefully in terms of the health and fitness and the gym areas and hopefully again that

01:26map makes sure it's fit for purpose for the future and we get lots more people using it.

01:32Personally, in terms of my association with the centre and then also professionally, I

01:39learnt to swim here over 30 years ago with Eastbourne Swimming Club and then was a local

01:45user of the centre so it's something I'm passionate about in terms of that history

01:52and association so great to be involved in this project. But also on a sort of personal

01:59professional level, in terms of what I do, who I work for, we believe in the value of

02:07leisure facilities in terms of the health benefits and for all of the communities. We

02:12want to see them busy, we believe in the benefit they bring of how an important social

02:19role they play in local communities so to have something shut is, we think, completely

02:26wrong. We want to see the centre busy, we want to see people enjoying it, we believe

02:30it's a community asset, we believe in the social value that it gives back. Our assessment

02:36of that is that for every pound invested you get two pounds back in terms of social value

02:41in terms of health benefits, benefits for children, old people, families and bringing

02:48people together so that's why it's such an important project. And in terms of GLL, who

02:54operate the centre, under our better brand, we're a social enterprise so every single

02:59penny that is invested here goes back in, it doesn't leave the system. That's what we're

03:04about and hopefully we can make it sustainable for the long term.