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All posts by: Joanne Smith-Wood

About Joanne Smith-Wood

Joint Provision in Nottinghamshire – the most significant pathfinder in jointly provided sports centres

New schools underpin early Nottinghamshire Joint Provision Nationally there were numerous school building programmes in the 1960s to cope with new settlements or expanded towns. From 1960 to 1969, Nottinghamshire County Council built 32 new secondary schools and 73 new primary schools [ref. Hansard March 1970]. Nottinghamshire’s first purpose-built comprehensive school, Ashfield School, had arrived […]

Cheshire Joint Provision, 1972-1979

Origins In 1967 Cheshire recorded only 25 indoor ‘sports premises’ in the County in excess of 3,999 ft.[i]. By 1979, a mere 12 years later, some 29 additional new indoor sports centres had been provided, an impressive achievement. But what is all the more remarkable is that 22 of these were jointly provided by the […]

The Oval Bebington, Cheshire

The Oval Bebington, Cheshire, (sometimes referred to as the Bebington Oval and Port Sunlight) is a municipal athletics stadium with a sports hall in Bebington, Merseyside. It opened in 1973 and its first centre manager was Denis Woodman, who became Director of the Countryside & Recreation Division, Cheshire CC, and Chairman of the Association of […]

Alec Collins

The late Alec Collins was an early Leisure Director for Macclesfield Borough Council from Local Government Re-organisation in 1974. He brought his administrative and management experience as a Town Council Clerk to recreation management. His wartime service was in the RAF, where he combined his navigation skills with piano playing, performing with many of the […]

An Assessor’s Personal Review from the 1970s & 1980s

My initial view as an assessor at the beginning of the award, was the difficulty of comparing the management of centres that were very different e.g. a large town centre facility with a small rural. Indeed, at one stage there was a discussion about the desirability of having different categories. The award then moved on […]

Some history and my memories of recreation management – by Geoff Bott

I started my first job as a sports director in 1964 when I was appointed by Leeds City Council as Principal of the Leeds Athletic Institute. The council embarked on an innovative scheme and set up an old Victorian “E shaped” school as a sports activity centre. It’s design provided three large halls and twelve […]

A low-cost sports hall at Tisbury in Salisbury District

The John Hirn Construction low cost sports centre model was selected by Salisbury District Council in 1992 to meet the needs of the Districts Western Parishes. The late Michael Norrish, Managing Director of John Hirn had been developing an all timber sports centre model very successfully in Southern England. Tisbury and District Sports Centre had […]

Deeside Leisure Centre

Recollections of the Early Years (March 12th, 1971 – April 2nd, 1978)   The Project The Gamechangers In 1960 Sir John Wolfenden drew national attention to “the serious shortage of facilities for indoor games and sports”. His report (Sport and the Community) persuaded many local authorities to plan for the “greatest challenge of the seventies”.   […]

The Standardised Approach to Sports Halls (SASH)

Given the scarcity of new leisure and community sports building in the early 21st Century, it almost seems remarkable that there was a time when there was a demand for multiple standardised sports buildings to meet the growing demands of communities.  However, that was the situation in the early 1980’s when Local Authorities and other […]

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