Wycombe Leisure Centre wins prestigious national award

Matthew Clark | October 26, 2017

Wycombe Leisure Centre 50m swimming pool has been used for regional swimming championships. The pool has a moveable floor and special changing facilities for disabled swimmers.

Wycombe Leisure Centre has won a top national award for inclusive design.

The award, from the Construction Industry Council (CIC), was for the best example of inclusive design in a contemporary building or built environment project.

The Inclusive Environment award was presented at a reception in London on Wednesday 26th October 2017. The award was collected by David Anderson, the Corporate Director at Wycombe District Council, who was there to represent the council.

Wycombe Leisure Centre stood out to the CIC judges for its accessible and inclusive building design for both able and disabled users.

Wycombe District Council designed the leisure centre working closely with a wide range of community groups and local sports clubs to involve them in the design and specification throughout the project. The design brief was to make the new Wycombe Leisure Centre as inclusive as possible for all members of the community of Wycombe District and beyond.

The new complex used Sport England Design Guidance to encourage more people to use local sports and leisure facilities and help to remove barriers for able and disabled people to get active and try new sports.

Wycombe Leisure Centre has a climbing wall for able and disabled climbers.

Since Wycombe Leisure Centre open in 2016 more and more local people have been using the facilities than ever before and Wycombe Leisure Centre is proudly able to host sports events for able and disabled competitors and players at local, regional and national level.

The CIC Inclusive Environment Award judging panel was particularly impressed with how Wycombe Leisure Centre had integrated inclusivity into the strategic brief from the outset and how Wycombe District Council had used feedback and input about the facilities from with a wide range of stakeholders including disabled people and older peoples clubs. This included extensive detailed research on the design of splayed wheeled sports wheelchairs to ensure suitable door width to allow full access to facilities like the squash courts.

Facilities at Wycombe Leisure Centre include :

A fully accessible indoor bowling green.
Squash courts for able and disabled players.
A climbing wall which is accessible to disabled children.
A Changing Places WC.
A pool with a moveable floor with good viewing positions for wheelchair users overlooking the pool.

Councillor Katrina Wood, Leader of Wycombe District Council said: ‘We know that Wycombe Leisure Centre is successful by the number of people who use it and the fact that is now a venue of choice for many key sporting events.

We are really proud that, by working with the community ,we have designed and delivered an accessible building for everyone to enjoy using and which is recognised as being the best in the country. We can all be justifiably proud of this local facility.‘

John Nolan, Chairman, Construction Industry Council and member of the judging panel added: ‘It is inspiring to see schemes going beyond the minimum regulatory standards and embracing inclusion from the start of a project. It shows what can be achieved when we work with the whole community and aim for true inclusion.‘