Our community was informed that the Shepton Mallet Leisure Centre was due to close on 31st January 2023.

In September 2020, the Community raised over £10k to keep the leisure centre open, showing how important the centre is and citing then that "Shepton Mallet Leisure Centre is a community focused sports and fitness centre that benefits a huge number of the Shepton Mallet community" - nothing has changed in the last 2 years, the centre was and still is a central health and fitness hub for Shepton Mallet.

"Physical activity is not only good for your body, but it's also great for your mind" (mentalhealth.org.uk) - our physical and mental health is crucial to our continued wellbeing and the leisure centre provides a central point for: Hockey, football, squash, badminton, wellbeing, aerobic and strength classes, a gym, sports therapy plus many more activities that are too numerous to raise here.

Shepton Mallet Leisure Centre is the common thread that brings people together - meeting people from different walks of life that you would not otherwise meet -  strong communities are critical and investing in our community is more important now than it ever was.

The speed at which the decision was taken took us all by surprise and we knew then, that it would impact longer-term physical and mental health in our community.

We asked for people to sign the petition to enable Mr Guy Swallow, Headteacher of Whitstone School (who made the decision) to understand the community feeling and ask that he re-consider his decision to close, pending further community consultation, liaison with Somerset Council, the Town Council and potential funding.

The Head Teacher took the decision to make the staff redundant and close the centre during the day, but allowed some of the facilities to be hired by individual instructors in the evenings, some did manage to do that but it limited choice and the gym was then largely unused due to the high PAYG prices - inevitably, people slowly began to look for alternatives.

The community was shocked however in June, to find that despite the signs in the leisure centre saying that it would close for the Glastonbury Festival and would re-open, a decision was taken by the Head Teacher to close it for good.  There was no consultation and confused communication with a limited number of people.

It is important for decision-makers to consider a range of impacts when contemplating the closure of a leisure facility and look at alternative solutions and explore partnerships to mitigate the negative consequences - none of this took place.

A leisure centre serves as a landmark within our community, contributing to local identify and pride, it impacts on health and well-being, fosters social connections, is particularly important for children and teenagers, providing them with a safe and supervised environment for physical activities, it generates employment opportunities and brings people into Shepton, it supports vulnerable groups - the list goes on.  

Please continue to sign this petition to show your support and keep updated on progress.