Plymouth Life Centre

Plymouth Life Centre

The Plymouth Life Centre is a leisure centre in Central Park, Plymouth, Devon, England, run by Plymouth Active Leisure (previously Everyone Active) in partnership with Plymouth City Council. Its facilities include a family leisure pool, a climbing wall, an eight-lane indoor bowls centre, fitness suite, a 10 lane 50-metre Olympic standard swimming pool, an Olympic standard diving pool, along with dryside training facilities, showers and a multipurpose area for dance and martial arts.[1] It is currently the only 12 court multipurpose sports hall in Devon. The climbing wall facility is managed by High Sports.[2] The aquatic facilities are the largest facility in southern England and were used by several teams training for the 2012 Olympics.[3] The Life Centre replaces the Mayflower Centre and Central Park Leisure Pools. It opened in March 2012 at a cost of £46.5m.[4]

Following the announcement that gyms and leisure centres could open on 25 July 2020, after the UK's first national lockdown amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Plymouth City Council announced that following investigations by themselves and the contractors, Balfour Beatty, urgent repair work needed to be done to the building. This would include stripping the pool and changing rooms back to the base concrete and laying new waterproof layers. The Life Centre subsequently closed and would do so until April 2021 whilst work was undertaken. Due to the UK Government's road map out of the country's third lockdown, the Life Centre would not reopen to the public until 17 May 2021.[5]

Clubs

The centre is home to the Plymouth Raiders national league basketball team,[6] Plymouth Life Centre Indoor Bowls Club,[7] and to Plymouth Diving Club.[8]

Sporting records

Ben Proud broke the British 50m freestyle record at Plymouth Life Centre in May 2014.[9]

The Life Centre hosted the 2015 British Diving Championships, where local diver World Champion and Olympian Tom Daley won the British title on the 10m platform.

Architecture

Work commenced on the building in February, 2010 and was completed in September, 2011. The main contractor for the building was Balfour Beatty.[10]

The building features glass cladding using tiles with stainless steel staircases. Low-carbon technologies were used to heat the building and Plymouth's largest rooftop solar PV was installed to reduce energy bills.

In 2013, the centre won the Quality Awards' 'Best Community Building'[11]

References

  1. ^ "Plymouth City Council - Plymouth Life Centre". Archived from the original on 30 December 2011. Retrieved 26 January 2012. retrieved 8 April 2015
  2. ^ http://www.high-sports.co.uk/sites/plymouth/ Archived 16 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine retrieved on 8 April 2015
  3. ^ "Plymouth City Council - Plymouth Life Centre". Archived from the original on 30 December 2011. Retrieved 26 January 2012. retrieved 8 April 2015
  4. ^ "Plymouth's £46.5m Life Centre opens". BBC News. 22 March 2012. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  5. ^ "Urgent works for Plymouth Life Centre | PLYMOUTH.GOV.UK". www.plymouth.gov.uk. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
  6. ^ "Plymouth Raiders back in national league and will play at Life Centre". plymouthherald.co.uk. 18 June 2023. Retrieved 20 June 2023.
  7. ^ "Plymouth Life Centre Indoor Bowls Club". www.plymouthlifecentreindoorbowlsclub.co.uk. Retrieved 6 April 2015.[title missing]
  8. ^ http://www.plymouthdiving.com/about-us/ Archived 28 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine retrieved 8 April 2015
  9. ^ "Proud breaks 50m Free British Record". British Swimming. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
  10. ^ "Archial hope to make a splash with Plymouth leisure centre : February 2010 : News : Architecture in profile the building environment in Scotland". www.urbanrealm.com. Retrieved 19 October 2014.
  11. ^ "Plymouth Life Centre wins 'best community building' award | The Devon Daily". www.thedevondaily.co.uk. Retrieved 10 August 2023.