46





 


Sporting Village. The building offers two swimming pools, a gymnastics hall,


A


fitness room, two exercise studios, eight courts for ball games, a rock climbing wall and a grandstand overlooking an adjacent athletics track. Around it are five-a-side football pitches, netball courts and a large park with hockey, football and cricket pitches. Remarkably, the £38 million project was publicly financed


even in the midst of the recession, as Basildon Borough Council successfully assembled grants from partner bodies and the pro- ceeds of land sales.


nyone in south Essex inspired by next year’s London Olympic Games to take up sports, will surely be even further encouraged when they walk into Basildon


Although the opening has coincided with the run-up to the


Olympic Games – and the Japanese swimming team will be based there – the village was not conceived around the Games themselves but rather as part of their legacy. Paul Brace, the council’s manager of leisure services, explains


that the council owned two small fitness suites, a 40-year-old 33.3-metre swimming pool and a sports centre that was ‘beyond economical repair.’ The Gloucester Park site now occupied by the Sporting


Village had an athletics track with a small grandstand and changing facility and open air sports pitches and the idea grew, after public consultation, to consolidate sports facilities there in a new building.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5