Leisure centre ready to be run by Kidsgrove community

The centre closed in 2017

A leisure centre is set to reopen and be run by the local community five years after closing.

A £7.5m transformation is under way at Kidsgrove Sports Centre in Staffordshire with a 25-year lease with Newcastle Borough Council agreed.

The sports centre is owned by Kidsgrove Sports Centre Community Group and is due to open in May.

Mark Clewes, chair of the group, said the community felt as though its heart had been ripped out when the site shut.

The facility was in need of renovations which at the time the council could not afford to make and it shut in 2017.

Mark Clewes said the community wanted the leisure centre to return

"It was one of those moments where everybody hoped there would be a change of heart but sadly there wasn't and that's why we had to look to new models," he said.

"One of the new models was to try and replicate what's happening in other parts of the country which was the community ownership model."

The group has obtained funding from the council and the government and said the centre will be run in the same way as other leisure centres with a manager and staff, but all income will go back into running costs and staff wages.

Alistair Brymer, operations manager at Willmott Dixon Contractors said the centre would become a "fantastic leisure facility".

"A community like this is very hard to find.

"The investment into this facility is inspiring, inspiring to us as a contractor and I think if this can work and operate to the ambition that they've got, then wow, absolutely fantastic."

The centre will host a dance studio, a 25m pool, a fitness suite and a sports hall.