Charity acquires multimillion-pound sports village in Stockport

Malcolm McPhail

A charitable trust and not for profit social enterprise company has taken ownership of a multi-million sports complex.

Life Leisure, which manages sports and leisure facilities – including 12 in Stockport – has taken ownership of the Stockport Sports Village (SSV).

The trust bought the multi-million pound, 23 acre site, from Woodley Sports Social Club Ltd.

The deal is the operating company’s first venture into land ownership and is thought to reflect a rent vs mortgage differential of £14 million for the trust.

Life Leisure first took over rental and management of the site in 2012.

Since then SSV has achieved year-on-year growth, attracting over 1,000 users a day to facilities including a 5,000 sq ft Gym, aerobics, HIIT and dance studios, 17 3G football pitches and club standard tennis courts.

The site’s conference and banqueting facilities are also used by Stockport’s hospitality and corporate sector.

Since its launch six years’ ago, SSV has also been an important addition to Stockport’s education infrastructure, providing a base for Stockport College to deliver many of its sports courses.

This year also saw Life Leisure invest in a new on-site outdoor training facility for obstacle course races (OCRs) – including its own Tough Tribe event – and an outdoor Laser Combat course.

Life Leisure Group chief executive Malcolm McPhail said: “The successful purchase of SSV marks the start of a new era for the organisation and also a milestone for Stockport.

“As a leisure trust, we currently face unprecedented competitive pressure at all levels, from major private chains and boutique gyms, through to budget operators.

“It’s a market environment which means you have to believe in and commit to every single business decision wholeheartedly – buying SSV is the perfect example of this.

“It’s unusual for a trust, let alone a trust of our size, to be in a position to buy such a major asset but we could see SSV’s potential and its importance to Stockport from the outset, so when the call for interested parties first went out around three years ago, we knew it was absolutely something worth pursuing.

“I also always knew this was a direction I wanted to go with Life Leisure. The amazing team here has enabled us to build a reputation for operational excellence – it’s one of the key reasons we were successful in our bid over other contenders.

“I felt the time was right to build on that reputation by becoming an owner and establishing a major anchor on our balance sheet.

“I should also say at this point that Lloyds Bank, Paul Wilcox from GDP Funding, our legal advisors DWF, and Bruce Poizer from real estate brokers Cushman and Wakefield were fantastic throughout the entire process.”

The acquisition reflects a period of significant development for Life Leisure which over the last five years has achieved 45% growth in turnover.

Earlier this month the trust announced its first management contract outside Stockport.
The organisation recently took over The Park Leisure Centre in Barrow-in-Furness, relaunching the facility in August as ‘Life Leisure Barrow Park’.

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