The Sovereign Centre Fun Pool reopens under new GLL management in Eastbourne. Joseph Rham, GLL Customer and Communities Director, tells us more.
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00:00We took over the running of the centre from Eastbourne Borough Council on Tuesday 1st
00:07of April and today we've reopened the fun pool, or leisure pool as we're calling it
00:13in the new customer information, open to the public and hopefully it's nice and busy today
00:19with lots of locals coming back and people using it and having a good time.
00:23Plans going forward are obviously to get the centre back up and running on its feet,
00:29busy, leisure pool busy for the Easter holidays and the summer period. That's kind of the
00:35priority, get customers used to the new way of working. In terms of investment into the
00:41centre, there's a million pounds that's going to be invested in the centre. Lots of that's
00:45going to be around kind of the unseen items, plant equipment, maintenance to make sure
00:53the building's fit for purpose, keeps running, we haven't got the risk of closures hopefully.
00:59But we will do quite a significant refresh of the gym and the health and fitness areas.
01:05So we'll replace all of the cardiovascular equipment with new techno-gym, top of the
01:10range equipment. We'll refresh that area and the changing rooms and we'll just have a re-jig
01:16of the layout in there to make it a bit more customer friendly. So a significant improvement
01:22hopefully in terms of the health and fitness and the gym areas and hopefully again that
01:26map makes sure it's fit for purpose for the future and we get lots more people using it.
01:32Personally, in terms of my association with the centre and then also professionally, I
01:39learnt to swim here over 30 years ago with Eastbourne Swimming Club and then was a local
01:45user of the centre so it's something I'm passionate about in terms of that history
01:52and association so great to be involved in this project. But also on a sort of personal
01:59professional level, in terms of what I do, who I work for, we believe in the value of
02:07leisure facilities in terms of the health benefits and for all of the communities. We
02:12want to see them busy, we believe in the benefit they bring of how an important social
02:19role they play in local communities so to have something shut is, we think, completely
02:26wrong. We want to see the centre busy, we want to see people enjoying it, we believe
02:30it's a community asset, we believe in the social value that it gives back. Our assessment
02:36of that is that for every pound invested you get two pounds back in terms of social value
02:41in terms of health benefits, benefits for children, old people, families and bringing
02:48people together so that's why it's such an important project. And in terms of GLL, who
02:54operate the centre, under our better brand, we're a social enterprise so every single
02:59penny that is invested here goes back in, it doesn't leave the system. That's what we're
03:04about and hopefully we can make it sustainable for the long term.