Vale of Glamorgan Council has recently agreed a contract extension for its Leisure Centres with its current operational partner Legacy Leisure.

All Vale leisure centres including Barry Leisure Centre, Colcot Sports Centre, Cowbridge Leisure Centre, Llantwit Major Leisure Centre and Penarth Leisure Centre are run in partnership with Legacy Leisure.

For the last 10 years, services at the leisure centres have been provided by Legacy Leisure and will now continue until 2030.

Since 2012 there has been major refurbishments of the facilities, the introduction of new activities, an extensive extension of the fitness and swimming lesson products, and a commitment to keeping prices affordable as well as other improvements that has seen the quality of the service continuously improve.

During 2018 the Vale of Glamorgan centres attracted 800,000 visits, an increase of 20 per cent since 2012.

The centres are looking to recover to this level of usage following the interruption to services caused by Covid-19.

Councillor Gwyn John, cabinet member for leisure, sport and well-being, said: "If the pandemic taught us anything, it was that by being fit and healthy, you are in the best place to resist anything that is thrown at you.

"Barry and Penarth Leisure Centres are the most visited indoor facilities owned by the Council and I am delighted to be able to celebrate signing the formal contract extension with Legacy Leisure."

Glen Hall, managing director of Legacy Leisure said: "It's almost 10 years to the day that we've had the privilege of operating the facilities on behalf of the Vale of Glamorgan council and the partnership has been superb.

"We've delivered some incredible results over those 10 years and had great investments into the facility and that's really culminated in the last few days with the extension in the partnership through to 2030."

"We're really excited by it. I think users and non-users will be excited in the additional investment that will start in the coming weeks and conclude by the end of the year, offering improved facilities, improved programming, improved service.

"It's a really exciting time to offer improved leisure and recreational facilities."