How Lordswood Leisure Centre Began
Lordswood Leisure Centre first opened its doors in 1982 to the general public. It was first opened as an extension to Lordswood Sports and Social club being run as a sports hall with changing rooms.
In the early 90s the centre expanded by have an extension built adding a new reception area, further halls & extra rooms.
The centre was run as a partnership controlling all staff, management accounts and sporting activities until 2003, from here on the council policy was to put it to Compulsory Competitive Tendering.
There was no firm commitment and a proposal was passed to the council to carry on running the centre on a 20 year lease, this was then agreed later the same year and the Lordswood Leisure Centre charitable trust began.
How we’ve changed
Lordswood Leisure Centre was formed as a charitable trust in October 2004, and is now managed and run by members of the local community on behalf of Medway Council.
The Centre operates on a non profit basis with any profits made being invested back into the centre for improvement works. Since 2004 the centre has undergone major refurbishments in various areas to enhance the site, such as the new Martin Grove Suite and our Acorns Health & Fitness Suite, which were previously a viewing gallery and squash courts.
How we’ve grown
Further years have resulted in further redevelopments such as the Main Sports hall which was completely transformed in 2008, the whole room was stripped and re-worked; the walls had new bricks, the paint and plaster was refreshed and a brand new floor was installed.
How we’ve improved
In 2010 the introduction of the Quee Suite was announced and our smaller ancillary hall was transformed into a stunning indoor marquee complemented by mutiple colour uplighters, a bar and much more.
The Quee Suite runs as a very versatile room acting as a smaller sports hall for sports and leisure and a fully functional indoor marquee/venue for functions when needed.
Further on in the year the introduction of the Grand Quee Suite was also announced, a giant indoor marquee to fill the 155ft x 55ft space!
As with the Quee Suite, the Grand Quee suite still maintains full versatility by being able to remove the giant marquee for other sporting and leisure activities.
The end of 2014/start of 2015 saw the redevelopment of the entire Acorns Health & Fitness Suite. The gym are was opened up to give a large open plan area, new machines were added and a complete revamp of all of the areas was completed.
Your Centre & Our Centre
As the centre continues to grow, we continue to improve the centre day by day, all profits go back into the centre to generate a more pleasurable visit for you.
The board comprises of six board members, it has an excellent mix of talents from various areas in the community and includes representatives from the Centres Management Team.
Our main objective is to serve the residents of Lordswood and its surrounding areas to the highest standards we can. A large amount of our organisations that use the Centre run on a voluntary basis.
Our objectives are always straight forward, to encourage youths and adults of allages, religions and backgrounds to enjoy leisure facilities and we are very proud to say that some of our members are way into their 80s and still enjoying their Leisure Centre.
