New fitness studios in Essex

Published on 31 January 2012

A £192,000 deal has secured major upgrades to the fitness suites at Ongar Leisure Centre and Epping Sports Centre. Councillor Brian Rolfe Epping Forest District Council Vice-Chairman and Leisure and Wellbeing Portfolio Holder Ricki Gadsby officially opened the sparkling new Everyone Active facilities during tours of the centres on 5 January.

The ground-breaking deal involved sports and leisure centre contractor SLM Ltd, branded as Everyone Active reducing its management charge to Epping Forest District Council by £53,000 a year in exchange for the one-off payment towards the new equipment.

Ongar now boasts 32 items of cardio equipment including brand new treadmills, cross-trainers, adaptive motion trainers, a stepper, upright and recumbent bikes, a sci-fit arm cycle, Concept Two rowing machines and two X-Dream Trixster cycles. Ongar also has eleven Precor resistance machines. Epping is looking equally good.

Councillor Rolfe cut ceremonial ribbons to officially open each new suite. He said: “It gave me great pleasure to open the new suites. If you have never tried a gym or fitness suite, I would wholeheartedly recommend a visit to Epping or Ongar. These facilities must be among the best in our district. I was really proud to open them.”

Councillor Ricki Gadsby said: “I would like to congratulate Everyone Active and the staff at Epping Forest District Council. In these hard economic times, this is a great example of the public and private sector using initiative and imagination on behalf of our residents. Users of the new fitness suites will find some of the newest and best equipment to be found.”

Councillor Rolfe and Councillor Gadsby took time out after the official openings to talk with staff and try out some of the new machines for themselves.

For more information go to Everyone Active