ADVERTISEMENT PROMOTION NEW SERIES
SCOPING & INVESTIGATION
In part one of a nine-part series detailing Alliance Leisure’s process for creating successful public leisure facilities, we see the importance of starting with a frank discussion, an imaginative vision and a sound feasibility study.
T T
here are many examples of new and architecturally impressive leisure centres to be found around the UK, yet
that fact remains that over two-thirds of facilities are more than 20 years old, having been built with a 25-year lifecycle in mind. That suggests a lot of stock in urgent need of renewal and revival. Alliance Leisure has been in the
business of breathing new life into fl agging, and often failing, sport and leisure facilities for the past 15 years. It offers a turnkey procurement and development service for local authorities and leisure trusts, taking on all the risk, with no upfront fees for councils in the all-important scoping and planning stages. With access to a loyal stream of City funders, Alliance Leisure has so
far invested over £60m into the public portfolio and completed over 100 projects. In many of these cases, there’s been no need for any capital outlay on the part of the client, and the end result can be a cost- neutral development delivered in half the time of a project taken through a more traditional route. “We’re not in the business of
Follow the series
1. Scoping / Investigation
2. The Visuals
3.Viability assessment 4. Full feasibility
5.Site investigation
6.Fixed price contracts 7. Overseeing the building work
8.Ordering phase
9.Client support
Evolution Extreme captures a hard-to-reach market
producing expensive, signature buildings. In these times of huge pressures on public funds, clients should not be spending any more than they need
CASE STUDY – Deeside Leisure Centre, North Wales
he regeneration of Deeside Leisure Centre, in a four-year strategic collaboration between
Flintshire County Council (FCC) and Alliance Leisure, shows what can be achieved with a new standard of public- private partnership. The council originally planned to
demolish and rebuild the underutilised centre at a cost of £18m. Working with Alliance Leisure and its access to funding paved the way for a regeneration project that cost only £6m and required no capital outlay by the authority. Each project phase was made affordable based on detailed feasibility and business planning. Phase one (Nov 2010) created
six 5-a-side 3G turf football pitches, attracting over 60,000 visits since opening, and a regular monthly income of £8,000.
Phase Two (Aug 2011) saw the
opening of a fi tness facility and toning suite. Both facilities generate a combined income of £35,000 per month and total income since opening has risen by 92 per cent. In Phase Three (Jan 2012), the centre
opened the fi rst Welsh public day spa, and also launched the UK’s largest extreme sports centre. Evolution Extreme caters for climbers, BMX, skateboards, scooters and inline skaters, and attracts 2,000 visits a week, largely from the hard-to-reach demographic of young teenage boys. Julia Goddard, Alliance Leisure’s
business development manager, adds: “Deeside shows how a fantastic opportunity can arise from a rundown and costly facility. Through creative design the centre now boasts modern facilities to engage its local community.”
56 Read Health Club Management online at
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to,” says Alliance Leisure’s commercial director, Paul Cluett. “Also, there’s no point in investing in
a new facility that fails to engage 89 per cent of the local population.”
Detailed analysis The foundations for success are laid early in the Alliance Leisure-client relationship, starting with a rigorous process to scope and test out a project’s commercial viability and sustainability in the community before any decisions to go further. Cluett says that, at this early stage, clients must be prepared to face a potentially difficult process. “We’re not afraid to challenge our
clients. They may want to knock down an old sports centre and build a brand new one. If there’s a more economical way of doing things that delivers higher value to the community, that’s what we’ll push for. “For example, a client might ask
for a 100-station gym. But then we commission a latent demand report from Leisure Database, and the results show they really only need 60 stations. That’s a lot of money to be saved on equipment, and a lot of space that can be put to better use,” says Cluett. “We also like to challenge their
perceptions of what a sport and leisure September 2013 © Cybertrek 2013
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