UEA Sportspark awarded nationally as top leisure facility
By: News Archive
The University of East Anglia’s (UEA) Sportspark has been recognised as the best sporting facility of its kind in the UK last year at a recent awards ceremony.
The Sportspark was named as the Top Performing Facility Managed Centre 2018 registered with Quest, which is Sport England’s tool to measure the continuous improvement of leisure facilities, and beat off competition from nearly 700 other facilities across the UK.
Quest judge the improvement on an annual basis, based on a mystery visit and an assessment of 13 modules across a number of categories including customer service, cleaning, environmental management, finance and event management.
In their appraisal of the Sportspark, Quest commended staff for having ‘worked hard on continuously improving the Centre, the processes and procedures, leading to an increase in the performance in many areas, with an increase also in customer engagement, interaction and satisfaction’.
Last year, the Sportspark improved its Quest rating from Good to Excellent. Like inspections for health and education facilities, inspectors ask questions to members of staff at all levels as part of their assessment.
The Sportspark first entered the Quest scheme in 2014, winning the Exceptional Centre Award in their first year and have gone on to continuously improve before reaching the top award this year.
The award is supported by Sport England, Sport Wales, Sport Scotland and Sport Northern Ireland, as well as organisations like CIMSPA (Chartered Institute for Management of Sport and Physical Activity), ukactive, LGA (Local Government Association), CSPN (County Sports Partnership Network), Activity Alliance and SPORTA.
Phil Steele, Director of Sport at UEA, said: “I am immensely proud that we have been judged as the highest performers in our field and this award is testament to the commitment being put in day in and day out by the hardworking and dedicated Sportspark team”.
“The purpose of the Sportspark is to provide a top-class sports and leisure facility for UEA students and the wider community of Norfolk so to receive confirmation that we are achieving this is hugely gratifying.”
Caroline Constantine, Director of Right Directions, which manages the Quest scheme, added: “UEA Sportspark is one of the largest Centres in Quest, with a wide range of facilities and staff, so to achieve Excellent is no mean feat. Quest challenges staff through both the mystery visit and assessment, and UEA Sportspark have demonstrated through their staff that they provide a great service to both students, university staff and the local community. Well done to all the team.”
The Sportspark is lottery-funded and provides inclusive, accessible facilities for the local community, offering an affordable and diverse range of sports and activities.
Facilities include a 50m competition pool, fitness centre, climbing wall, a gymnastics and trampolining centre, numerous sports courts and studios and a 400m athletics track.
You can find more information about the Sportspark by visiting www.sportspark.co.uk and UEA Sport and the sports scholarships available at www.ueasport.co.uk.
For more information about Quest, visit: www.sportengland.org/our-work/partnering-local-government/tools-directory/quest
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