VISITS to Bracknell’s leisure centres were below target last year as refurbishments and renovations made a big impact on visitor numbers.

Documents for the year just gone show Bracknell Leisure Centre, Downshire Golf Complex and Coral Reef saw 1.3 million unique visits from April 2018 to March 2019.

This was below target by almost 400,000, as Bracknell Forest Council (BFC) hoped to see 1.7 million trips made last year.

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In his commentary of the last few months of the 2018-2019 year, BFC Chief Executive Timothy Wheadon wrote: “Visits to leisure sites have been below target.

“Bracknell Leisure Centre is tracking slightly lower than Q4 (January – March) last year by approximately 7,000 visits, and for the full year has performed at 91% of overall target for the site.

“However, this is an acceptable level of performance, considering operational disruption inevitably caused by improvement works during Q3 & Q4 (October – March).”

Everyone Active took over the running of Bracknell Leisure Centre from BFC in March 2018.

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Since then, the group has rolled out a £2.8 million refurbishment of the centre which saw a larger gym, new equipment and improved changing and cafe areas added to the site.

However, in September 2018 leisure centre managers told council bosses they had faced “more challenges than anticipated” since taking over the running, and in October 2018 one gym-goer told the News people were ‘turning away' from the site because of issues caused by the refurbishment.

Despite a tricky start, Everyone Active saw complaints relating to the leisure centre fall by December 2018, compared to eight months previously.

Everyone Active also took over the running of Coral Reef and Downshire Golf Complex in March 2018, but visitor numbers for these attractions were also down from previous periods.

Coral Reef saw 10,000 fewer visits at the tail end of 2019 compared to 2018.

As noted in the Chief Executive’s report, this difference came about because the Waterworld was closed for a week in January 2019 and because it saw a surge in visitors having reopened following improvement works in early 2018.

Coral Reef welcomed 460,000 visitors through its doors in the past year.

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The golf complex gained 2,000 more visits from January to March 2019 to the same period in 2018, but achieved 76 per cent of its overall annual target.