Our £698,000 refurbishment of Hexham’s Wentworth Leisure Centre, which officially opened on 30th September 2019, has been designed as a new template for similar schemes at Northumberland County Council’s other leisure centres.

JDDK Project Architect, Stuart Franklin, explained; “Wentworth, like other Active Northumberland-run leisure centres, was originally designed as a family, multi-activity facility, but faced increasing competition from private ’boutique’ gyms, who only focus on the more lucrative adult gym users, rather than a broad cross-section of users, accommodated in these local authority centres. The challenge was; how to compete with these gyms while offering the client value for money design solutions?”

At Wentworth, our solution was to concentrate on specific areas: The Foyer has been redesigned to create a welcoming experience, with a new modern way of booking via a self-service Kiosk, “Activator Pod” and a Concierge Desk; to provide a more personal client ‘Meet and Greet’ service.

We’ve introduced plants, easy chairs and sofas throughout the café to create a more convivial and relaxing environment for the new healthy living ‘Hive’ café. The Gym has been fully refurbished and equipment renewed with state-of-the-art interactive machines, utilising large format digital projectors and colour-change LED lighting to provide a fully “immersive experience”; with the final result being an attractive and innovative solution, to provide a gym to rival the current private gym competitors.