Sadia:

Love the fabulous pool and the changing facilities etc! The staff are very accomodating and it was nice to be met with a friendly smile. Unfortunately they do not have a creche but are considering some form of childcare facilities starting in February apparently.

Dave:

Hmm, maybe whoever wrote this article should actually visit the leisure centre before writing about it. It doesn’t have squash courts and it isn’t next to KFC.

The gym is good and reasonably priced but there are no paper towels to wipe the equipment down and the changing rooms smell bad. It isn’t currently possible to swipe in with a membership card so you have to queue up behind people applying for membership. So far, it has taken about 5 minutes, on average, just to get through the gate.

The sports hall seems good although I haven’t used it yet. It is about the size of one 5 a side football pitch.

There is an exercise studio and there are one or two classes each day. Apparently this will increase with time. There is also a small spinning studio, although I don’t think there are any classes booked in yet. I have seen signs for a climbing wall but as yet this does not exist.

As the previous poster said, the lanes in the pool are quite narrow and there is no clock, but the length is 25 metres, which is a good length for me.

The staff are all very helpful and friendly and I’m sure that once some of the seething problems are sorted, this leisure centre will be very successful.

Viv:

Absolutely terrible. Waited 10 minutes just to pay and then had to wait for someone to open the gate. Communal changing rooms right next to the pool with no privacy but little cubicles. I’m not a prude but if my towel slips i’d rather not be flashing to everyone at the leisure centre and i can imagine they feel the same way.

No signs up so was a hunt to find showers and toilets . There did appear to be a member of staff in the changing area but they had headphones on and seemed prettty busy playing with their phone. Not enough showers and to get to the toilets you had walk by the pool and past the pool side showers which meant that there was muddy trails by the pool and my trousers got wet. No bins in the toilets making the ladies pretty unsanitary and some bright spark had either ordered the wrong type of loo roll or put it in incorrected as it was near impossible to get any out. (i know i’m nit picking but i may as well get it all out).

The swimming lanes were ridiculously narrow and as there was no over flow area there were some people in the slow lane that could barely swim. They were so narrow people were having to wait either end to have a swim. This seemed all the more stupid when there were 2 classes being held either side of the lanes. One class was a one on one with at least 2 metres width allocated whilst the actual teaching pool was empty.

No clock as mentioned above is pretty annoying as well but i’m guessing they will get around to that as there were some useful sockets and a phone line about 5 metres up the wall by the pool!

Returning to the changing area there was mud across the floor and a member of staff was using a cleaning machine to successfully move said mud around to more areas. Queues for the showers followed by a grapple to take my clothes out of my locker without falshing the nation. To top it off the hairdryers were cheap air blowers that you would have to spend at least 20mins with to even start to dry your hair so no swimming before work.

I may be nit picking but we’ve waited years for it and it’s just dissapointing. Even when the teething problems are solved you’ll still have to get your legd wet on the way to the loo.

Brixton may have staff that are more interested in buffing their nails than serving you and the cleaning ladies like to throw bleach at your feet but all in all the facilities are miles better.

Bea:

Lots of issues, and I hope some can be resolved.
The swimming lanes are too narrow, and it took a while to get slow, middle, fast lane signs up.
No clock to time swim.
Despite having a learning pool they bizarrely shorten the already small main pool by raising the barrier.
No place for towels in the showers – you have to hang them over the door and hope they don’t get too damp/nicked
Because it’s all communal and poolside it’s very hard to have a proper shower, dry off and get changed without compromising some modesty.
People are – rightly – very enthusiastic but reception are struggling to cope, there needs to be a way to filter people queuing.
Poor signage.
I don’t understand why non-members need a gym induction, Soho Gyms don’t require this.