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Our new Moving Communities report shows the resilience, adaptability and continued importance of public leisure facilities to local communities

Leisure facilities in England are playing an increasingly important role in their communities, a new study has revealed, with more people using them than a year ago.  

The Moving Communities Impact Report, released yesterday, highlights the significant achievements of leisure facilities and the people who run them in fostering community engagement despite a variety of challenges.  

The report, which you can download below, reveals that participation and throughput to leisure centres have both increased, with the average number of participants per site up by almost a thousand people (7%) and overall visits growing by over 10,000 per year (5%).

The growth in leisure centre usage by economically disadvantaged groups is notable, with visits from users in the most deprived 20% of areas increasing by 9% (100,000 people).  

This demonstrates the crucial role leisure facilities play in supporting vulnerable communities to get active locally, providing inclusive and accessible opportunities for physical activity and social interaction.  

It underlines the vital role these facilities play in delivering our long-term strategy Uniting the Movement, that has tackling inequalities at its heart. 

The report also found that leisure centres generated a social value of £890m in 2023/24, which is an increase from £842m in the previous year. 

Social value represents the benefits these centres provide, such as improving public health and their wider value to the community. It's calculated by understanding who's participating in what activities and how regularly  

By this method, the average total social value per participant has increased to £119 in the last year.

The impact leisure centres can have on our attitudes towards fitness and activity is also seen, with 86% of respondents saying they preferred exercising in leisure centres than in a more informal setting. 

Emma Bernstein, our strategic projects lead, emphasised the importance of these findings. 

"The value of these facilities to our communities cannot be overstated," she said.

"They are more than just places to exercise; they are lifelines in offering crucial social connection, mental health support and physical health benefits.

"This report showcases their importance, but even more so, how they have continued to provide those benefits during particularly tough times."

Our Moving Communities service measures physical activity levels and other key performance metrics across delivery programmes and facilities in local places, and the wider social value that creates. 

The service provides a real-time view of delivery across programmes, facilities and places, with benchmarking and filtering functionality, alongside mapping tools to understand who's participating and its wider impact on local communities. 

This report is based on comprehensive data collection from 563 public leisure sites across England which submitted consistent participation data across the two-year period of the report.

It also highlights the financial performance of 436 sites which provided consistent financial data for that same period (April 2022-March 2024).

Find out more

• Moving Communities Impact Report