The Future of Public Leisure in Essex

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Public leisure facilities and services play a vital role in our physical activity and sport sector within Essex, not only serving local communities but also contributing to local government. Since emerging from the pandemic, we recognise the fragile state of public leisure. Participation levels have only partially recovered, membership rates have been impacted, facilities are battling rising energy costs and there are challenges in the recruitment and retention of staff.

On Wednesday 5th July, we held our first Future of Public Leisure event, which provided an overview of the current landscape and an opportunity to understand why a shared vision for public leisure facilities in Essex is so important, in order to create a more sustainable future.

The Future of Public Leisure event was attended by portfolio holders, members, local government senior officers, senior leisure contractors, policy makers and health & social care colleagues, and we heard from keynote speakers, Lucy Wightman; Director of Wellbeing, Public Health and Communities, Karen Creavin; Chief Executive of The Active Wellbeing Society and Steve Welch, Sport England’s Place Directorate. Find out more about our keynote speakers below:

Lucy Wightman, Director of Wellbeing, Public Health and Communities

Lucy Wightman is currently the Director of Wellbeing, Public Health and Communities at Essex County Council. During her Public Health Consultant career, Lucy led on the Healthcare Public Health portfolio, as well as having responsibility for aspects of wider public health including elements of Health Protection, Health Improvement and Information and Business Intelligence. During Lucy’s five year public health medical specialty training, she worked across the East Midlands on a variety of public health projects and research and undertook an extended out of programme placement in a provider trust, focussed heavily on quality improvement, clinical pathway design and strategic development. Having started her healthcare career in nursing, Lucy remains a registered nurse (BSc Hons Nursing) and has both a MSc in Public Health and a MSc in Leadership for Health and Social Care, which comprised a dual clinical and management curriculum.

Karen Creavin, Chief Executive of The Active Wellbeing Society

A community benefit society and cooperative, based in Birmingham, working to tackle inequality and promote community wellbeing. Karen is an innovative public service leader, with a reputation for disrupting, provoking and inspiring change, pushing at the boundaries of provision and always fighting for the least heard voices. She has overseen the delivery of multi-million pound projects, operated at a senior level within Europe’s largest local authority and influenced significant system change across health, transport, sport and physical activity. Karen understands how to shift systems and facilitate transformative change across sectors, how to speak truth to power, and how to lean in, be with and fully engage with underrepresented communities at scale.

Helen Hull, Adviser, Local Government Association

Helen leads the Local Government Associations’ (LGA) sport, physical activity and cultural services improvement programmes for officers and councillors, working with partners Sport England and Arts Council England. Before joining the LGA, Helen worked at Essex County Council and is a proud Essex resident, so is delighted to be speaking at this event.

In addition to hearing from inspirational keynote speakers, topical discussions took place to explore in more depth the challenges we face as public leisure providers. Find out more about the topics that were discussed below:

Learning from across the sector - David McHendry, Managing Director at Knight, Kavanagh & Page

Climate crisis and rising utility costs have created a range of new challenges for the design, development and management of leisure facilities, particularly for energy-intensive uses such as swimming pools. David McHendry will offer KKP’s perspective on how the sector has been, and how it will respond going forward.

The UK’s first Passivhaus swimming pool - Keith Ashton, Space & Place

Hear how with a predicted operating saving of £200k per annum and additional investment payback in less than 10 years, makes a compelling financial case for the sustainable design of a new facility at St. Sidwell’s Point Leisure Centre in Exeter.

Why leisure matters in Essex - Andy wright, Axis Consultancy and Jason Fergus, Director of Active Essex

Collectively let’s explore the focus on repositioning the traditional offer of public leisure into an active wellbeing service. How can we do more to create healthier and more active communities and learn from one another?

If you would like to view the presentations that were given by our keynote speakers and topical discussion leads, please download them using the links below:

Future of Leisure Presentations

Lucy Wightman, Director of Wellbeing, Public Health and Communities

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Steve Welch, Sport England

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Karen Creavin, Chief Executive of The Active Wellbeing Society

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Helen Hull, Adviser, Local Government Association

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David McHendry, Managing Director at Knight, Kavanagh & Page

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Keith Ashton, Space & Place

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