A leisure centre is entering into a new partnership with a cricket club “to extend our fitness offering outside for the first time in Havering”.
Harrow Lodge Leisure Centre and Hornchurch Cricket Club have announced they will be teaming up to provide the centre access to the club's facilities in Harrow Lodge Park.
To come into effect on April 1, this will mean it can run summer bootcamps and holiday camps on the site.
In return, Everyone Active, which manages the council's leisure centres including Harrow Lodge, will sponsor the club for the current season.
Tom Fletcher, area contract manager at Everyone Active, said: “We are extremely excited for what this partnership will bring to our programme at Harrow Lodge Leisure Centre. It allows us to extend our fitness offering outside for the first time in Havering.
“We’ve had a strong relationship with Hornchurch Cricket Club for a number of years, so this partnership was a natural fit, and will bring multiple benefits to both our members and the cricket club.”
Jeremy West, chairman of Hornchurch Cricket Club, added: “The formalisation of this fantastic partnership with our neighbours at Everyone Active’s Harrow Lodge Leisure Centre will enable us to reach more young people within our community and offer them an opportunity to develop in the sport.”
Another of Everyone Active’s Havering leisure centres, in Rainham, earlier this year celebrated its topping out ceremony in recognition of the final piece of its external site being completed.
The leader of Havering Council, Ray Morgon, described the work as “really positive”, adding the new facility will be “fantastic” for the whole borough.
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“We’re proud that we’ve been able to invest in our leisure centres, which are very important to both our physical and mental health.
“It will be an asset to the local community, not just as a place for people to stay healthy through exercise but also somewhere for people of all ages to meet and socialise.”
Work had begun on the site in Viking Way in January last year after being delayed by Covid, with the Recorder reporting the council hoped to have the work completed by June 2023.
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