Information held on swimming pools, football fields, sports halls, tennis courts and rugby fields
Case reference FOI2025/00455
Received 3 March 2025
Published 27 March 2025
Request
1. How many a) swimming pools, b) football fields, c) sports halls, d) tennis courts and e) rugby fields does or did your local authority own during financial years 2022-3, 2023-4 and 2024-5? Please could you provide a list of these facilities by type?
If you have any figures indicating roughly how many people use these facilities per day, I would be grateful if you could provide these, but f this poses an issue (e.g. excessive demand on your time) please do exclude this specific query from the overall request.
2. How many of those a) swimming pools, b) football fields, c) sports halls, d) tennis courts and e) rugby fields were reported to be completely or partially out of order at some point during financial years 2022-3, 2023-4 and 2024-5?
If you have the dates for which each facility was out of order, I would be grateful if you could provide these, but if this poses an issue (e.g. excessive demand on your time) please do exclude this specific query from the overall request.
Response
1. How many swimming pools, football fields, sports halls, tennis courts and rugby courts does or did your local authority own during financial years
2022-3, 2023-4 and 2024-5?
2. How many of those swimming pools, football fields, sports halls, tennis courts and rugby fields were reported to be completely or partially out of order at some point during financial years 2022-3, 2023-4 and 2024-5?
a) swimming pools,
Answer: 4 pools. Hereford LP, Ross SP, Ledbury SP, & Leominster Leisure Centre
No maintenance issues or closures.
Roughly about 330,000 visits per year, so not far off 1000 visits per day across the 4 pools.
b) football fields,
Answer: 0 football pitches
c) sports halls,
Answer: Equivalent to 6 badminton cts at Hereford Leisure Centre, 4 Bad cts at Leominster LC, 4 Bad Cts at Bromyard LC, 4 bad cts Kington LC (Limited access as linked to school). Bridge Street Sports Centre (Leominster) has two indoor tennis courts we do use for other indoor activities.
No maintenance has forced down time.
As for visits this is more difficult to quantify, and groups hires e.g. martial arts could be listed at 1 booking rather than 30 attending. I would suggest annual attendance across facilities per year is approximately 40,000
d) tennis courts and
Answer: 22/23 & 23/24 halo operated KGV for the Council year by year, only 4 grass courts available has 4 hard courts beyond safe repair following 2022 flooding.
Now Activate Sports Education who now manage Bishops Meadows Community Sports Park on behalf of HC.
They operate 4 x Hard Tennis Courts and 4 x Grass courts
e) rugby fields
Answer: Zero rugby pitches.
If you have the dates for which each facility was out of order, I would be grateful if you could provide these, but if this poses an issue (e.g. excessive demand on your time) please do exclude this specific query from the overall request.
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
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