THE COUNCIL’S leisure providers are seeing fewer complaints at their activity centres after a tricky start to the year.

Latest figures showed the number of complaints received by the council for Bracknell Leisure Centre are down from 105 in April to 47 in December, while residents complained about Coral Reef 198 times in April compared to just 16 times from October to December.

Damian James, assistant director of contract services at Bracknell Forest Council (BFC), said: “It is a good standard, we would love to have no complaints but the team there are working very hard.

“We’ve had a new manager in place covering the contracts for Everyone Active for Q3 onwards.

“On the whole, it is very positive.”

The News spoke to a number of residents who were unhappy with Bracknell Leisure Centre before its gym re-opened in January.

One user had said Everyone Active’s £2.8 million refurbishments of the site made the swimming area “disgusting”, with another claiming they were “ashamed” of the centre.

But David Love, Everyone Active’s Area Manager, told The News in October 2018 that the new centre was “going to be great”, and Damian James commended the service providers for reducing the number of complaints before the gymnasium reopened.

Despite the downturn in complaints at Bracknell Leisure Centre and Coral Reef, there was a rise in the number of complaints relating to Downshire Golf Complex.

Six complaints were received by December 2018, up from 4 at the end of September, and Damian James told councillors the rise came after users were unhappy with the course’s conditions.

And plans to build a new clubhouse at the complex have stalled after a council business case showed its funding arrangements could not support the proposals.

Councillors and officers were celebrating, however, after the latest figures showed the number of visits to leisure centres from Bracknell residents eclipsed one million by December 2018, with figures indicating the council is on track to achieve its target of getting more than 1.2 million visitors through leisure centre doors by the end of March.

And the authority has already smashed its goal for the number of attendances at junior leisure courses for the year, with 115,000 attending by December despite a council target of 100,000.

Councillors discussed the figures at a meeting of the environment, culture and communities committee on Tuesday, March 5.