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Smethwick Baths

Smethwick Baths – still going strong in 2019……….. as Smethwick Swimming Centre for Sandwell Leisure Trust Smethwick Baths was Britain’s first genuinely Modern (style of abstract art deco) baths. Designed by Chester Button and Borough Engineer Roland Fletcher the building perfectly captures the spirit of the age. With its tall parabolic arches the design of […]

Defining sport, leisure and recreation

SPORT The framework for Sport in England – ‘Making England an Active and Successful Sporting Nation: A Vision for 2020’ adopts the definition and description established by the Council of Europe Sports Charter in 1993: “Sport means all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness […]

Stretford Sports Centre

Stretford opened in 1972. Its location, sandwiched between Manchester United Football Stadium and Old Trafford Cricket Ground, may appear glamorous but in reality meant the need for car park stewards on match days! The centre was sited immediately adjacent to Stretford Technical College but was operated completely independent of it. The College had priority booking […]

Harlow Leisurezone 2016

The new centre at Harlow was brought on line in May 2010 and has proven to be very successful. To understand today’s success at Harlow Leisurezone is to not only acknowledge everything that has gone before, but to pay homage to it! HDST since its early conception back in 1957 has benefited from many individuals […]

Harlow Sportcentre the middle years: 1973-2005

MAY 7th 1973, the first Community Sports Centre in the UK, Harlow Sportcentre. Not the most imaginative of names I thought as I started my first day of a new career. I wonder how much goes on here in this ugly breezeblock building. It certainly didn’t look very inspiring. But not to worry I’ll get […]

A wider perspective on sport and leisure – by Terry Mack

“There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune…” The emergence of the Sport and Leisure centres may have been a phenomenon of the second half of the 20th Century but the increase in the general public’s demand for physical activities was present throughout the whole […]

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