A HEXHAM leisure centre has been ranked as ‘excellent’ in Sport England’s 'toughest' quality assessment Quest.

Wentworth Leisure Centre was commended for its cleanliness, inclusiveness, and welcoming community feel – as well as its customer service and core management practices.

Quest is an improvement programme within the leisure industry and is designed to measure how effective leisure and sports facilities and organisations are at providing customer service - delving into how well a facility is operating.

It looks at the operation of the business (such as maintenance, cleaning and health and safety) the people (such as customer experience and the team dynamics) and the purpose (such as how the facility plans to improve, and how it engages with the community surrounding it).

Richard Anderson, centre manager, said: “The team at Wentworth have worked extremely hard to gain this nationally recognised accreditation, which demonstrates how committed we all are in providing a quality and valued service for our customers.

"We are always striving to be the very best we can so to get the Excellent rating is fantastic for us.”

Northumberland County Councillor Jeff Watson, cabinet member for Promoting Healthy Lives said: “The rigorous assessments carried out through Quest challenge some of the best leisure centres in the UK and I am delighted that Wentworth Sports Centre has achieved such a great outcome.

“This is testament to the fantastic level of quality facilities and service the team consistently strive to deliver.”

The assessor noted that the team at Wentworth were efficient, very friendly, helpful, welcoming and enthusiastic.

The centre had an inclusive, community feel to it – promoting other local clubs and organisations, offering facility hire and also a range of membership options. This had a positive impact on encouraging a broad cross-section of the community to visit and participate in the various activities, the assessment added.

A good customer feedback software system was in place to help continuous improvement and staff satisfaction surveys were carried out regularly.

The overall standards of cleanliness, housekeeping and maintenance throughout the facility during the unannounced visit were commendable.