Witney News - Over 1m visitors to West Oxon’s leisure facilities

Over 1m visitors to West Oxon’s leisure facilities

More than one million visits have been made to West Oxfordshire District Council’s leisure facilities in the past year.

There were 1,025,372 visits to leisure facilities between April 2010 and March 2011, according to records kept by the Council’s leisure operator Nexus Community.

The figure includes visits made to all facilities run by Nexus on behalf of the Council, including leisure centres in Carterton, Chipping Norton, Eynsham and Witney, as well as Artificial Turf Pitches in Carterton and Witney, Carterton Pavilion and Woodstock outdoor pool.

Most people attended The Windrush, the largest of all the leisure facilities, with more than 425,000 visits.

Cllr Richard Langridge, Cabinet Member for Local Economy and Communities, said: “We were absolutely delighted to hear that more than a million visits were made to the leisure facilities. This is equivalent to just over 2,800 visits every day of the year and that is a phenomenal figure.

"We take great pride in providing high-quality leisure facilities for use by all residents and also to making it as easy as possible for anyone who wishes to take part in physical activity to do so. We will continue to build on this success during this year and beyond.”

Witney resident Ellis Grant is among regular visitors to The Windrush. She goes to the leisure centre every Wednesday morning with her children Harvey, three, and Frankie, one, to attend a ‘Tiger Tots’ session for pre-school children, with a bouncy castle and play equipment.

She said: “It’s always busy at the group. I come because the children love it and it’s good to get out of the house with them and catch up with friends.”

Ben Border, Nexus Community’s Partnership Manager for West Oxfordshire, said: “It’s the first time we’ve monitored visits to all of the leisure facilities in this way and we were thrilled to have exceeded the one million mark. We want to continue improving the leisure facilities to offer more choice to local people at an affordable cost.

"This gives us a benchmark for future years and we will be working hard to improve the number of visits year on year.”

To find out more about the Council’s leisure facilities, visit www.nexuscommunity.org or call 01993 861552.