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St Austell Leisure Centre has been presented with an early birthday present to the tune of some £74,000 that will be spent on refurbishing their swimming pool area, writes Tom Howe.
The pool at the site on Carlyon Road will close for a little over six weeks (November 18 – January 2), during which time works will take place to reline it and enhance its surrounding area, in a project that includes the restoration of splash features.
The improvements come just in time for another major milestone in the venue’s history, with the building formerly known as Polkyth Leisure Centre celebrating its 50th anniversary on November 30.
Tristan Knight, general manager of St Austell Leisure Centre, joined Cheryl Gordon on the CHAOS Radio Breakfast Show to explain how the funding came about and the benefits it will bring to the services they offer to the community.
“Our pool at St Austell is a stainless steel tank and if you’ve ever been in there, when you stand on it, you hear a nice clunking noise,” he explained. “Unfortunately, it’s starting to rust through in places and to safeguard it, we’re going to have to drain the pool and reline it with epoxy resin, which will give it another 15 years of life.
“When we closed down for Covid, all of our systems shut down, and the programming systems and the pipework all got damaged due to the long period of inactivity. This is our first chance to really get the pipework and the features re-sorted, as well as getting the programming of the system in place properly.
“We’re going to re-service the pools, and get our t-section and the pool features back up and running [to allow for] more fun activities for our family sessions on a Saturday afternoon and on a Sunday. Our centre has a cradle to grave sort of philosophy and welcomes anyone from birth to the elderly, with activities on all the time.
“Obviously, with our pool being shut, it’s a bit of a shame that people can’t enjoy our pooling but we are adding additional sessions. We’ve added a chair aerobics session on a Friday afternoon and a senior multi-sport session on a Friday, too.”
Managed by GLL Better, the centre successfully applied for funding to support their refurbishment of their pool area, with Knight delighted to protect and enhance swim training, something he describes as a ‘vital life skill’.
“Most people will be aware that we are managed by GLL Better, the Greenwich Leisure Limit, and they have pots of money that we can apply for for good causes,” he continued. “We had to submit a bid to the national team and they saw the benefits of it to our community and, fortunately, we were the centre that got this money this year.
“Swimming is such a vital sort of life skill for any child or adult really, especially given that we live between two coasts. So it’s for the safety of our children and the public. It’s great that we can provide that service for all these people.
“We have rookie lifeguard classes that we’ll be rerunning again in January and that’s such an essential skill that these children learn because, at some stage, they will get to the point where there is someone in danger in the pool. It is good that you know how to safely save someone’s life and not to put yourself in danger at the same time.
“Basically, you will need to be able to swim 25 metres un-aided with functional breaststroke and the rest of the stuff we would train and develop you as you get stronger. We’re probably going to have an open day with our swimming pool reopening in January anyway, so we can invite people along to see whether they would be interested in the rookie lifeguard sessions.”
The swimming pool area is just one part of the wider provision and activity offered by St Austell Leisure Centre, who will be opening their doors for free taster sessions coinciding with their anniversary later this month.
“We’re going to be having open days on the 23rd and 24th of November to celebrate all of our dry side activities, in line with our birthday celebrations,” added Knight.
“So that’s going to be free gym sessions, free classes, and free poolside activities as well. We’re just finalising our plans for that, and we will release them in the coming days.”
For more information, including a full list of facilities, sessions and activities, head on over to St Austell Leisure Centre.
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