Company set to run major Sheffield sports facilities including Ponds Forge, Ice Sheffield

Everyone Active (EA), a trading subsidiary of Sports & Leisure Management Ltd (SLM), will take over from Sheffield City Trust and begin operating several venues from January 2, 2025. They include Ponds Forge International Sports Centre, the English Institute of Sport Sheffield (EISS), Ice Sheffield, Hillsborough, Concord and Springs Leisure Centres, Heeley Pool and the Birley, Beauchief and Tinsley golf courses.

The Graves, Thorncliffe and Wisewood Leisure Centres will follow in 2026.

Ponds Forge, the EISS and Ice Sheffield are all training bases for Olympians, Paralympians and other elite sporting figures and teams, as well as being open for everyone to use.

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The decision will be discussed next Monday (December 9) by the council’s communities, parks and leisure policy committee.

A report to the committee says that Everyone Active will also promote physical activity for adults and children in the sports centres, parks and open spaces. It will link up with the council’s Move More Physical Activity Strategy, which aims to help “make Sheffield healthier and fairer”.

Partnership

Several of the sports centres already serve deprived areas of the city.

That will build on partnership work taking place at Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park in Attercliffe which involves Westfield Health, Hallam University and Sheffield’s National Centre for Sport & Exercise Medicine (NCSEM).

The report says that the NCSEM is “a partnership between 12 organisations from across the health and care system that represent all elements of life in Sheffield”. They include NHS providers, Voluntary Action Sheffield, South Yorkshire Housing Association and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The report adds that Graves, Thorncliffe and Concord centres also act as wellbeing hubs, delivering approximately 100,000 clinical appointments per year across 20-plus NHS services.

The report says: “Central to our work with Everyone Active will be understanding people in Sheffield and their differing motivations and barriers for specific communities when it comes to sport and physical activity, rather than a one size fits all approach, including our approach to getting children active and reducing childhood obesity and getting people to be active outdoors.

Inequalities

“Sport England Research shows that people with health conditions cannot be thought of as one homogeneous group of people. A combination of economic and health inequalities magnifies the impact of barriers to getting active, such as confidence, lack of facilities and cost.”

EA will take over responsibility for repairs and maintenance of the venues, as well as ensuring that they meet community needs. The report says: “Our current contractual arrangements allowed the venues to fall into an unacceptable state and required significant long-term capital investment to keep them open and our budget challenge and energy crisis means we’re unable to continue running and maintaining the buildings in this way.”

The contract requires the creation of 30 full-time equivalent roles during the first three years, specifically targeting people who are unemployed, young people not in employment education or training and care leavers. The report says that EA, which will pay the Real Living Wage, will work with local employment agencies and Jobcentres to promote opportunities and will provide necessary training to remove qualifications as a barrier.

EA also has to work with a range of local organisations to promote employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

It has to commit 24 hours per year to provide career talks, mock interviews, and advice sessions to support people into employment.

Employees will enjoy complimentary use of all facilities, including wellbeing memberships. This includes access to an online GP seven days a week.

EA is also committed to spend more than £1m per year in the local supply chain, working with the Chamber of Commerce.

The contract requires EA to ensure responsible environmental and energy management and the efficient use of energy. It has to deliver a programme of 12 one-hour environmental awareness programmes with schools who attend weekly swimming sessions or activity programmes.

The report does not mention the cost of the contract or the number of years that it will run for.