Blackburn Sports & Leisure Centre

Fantastic experience: Excellent facilities especially for swimming

Positive experience: Great sports halls granddaughter play's netball there.

Negative experience: Way too hot in the in the swimming pool Balcony seating area.

Negative experience: They don't even deserve one star. The customer service was terrible. One of the representatives responded very rudely and clearly needs training on how to interact with customers. Despite having five memberships and a booking, I was not allowed to use the swimming facilities. When signing up, the staff was extremely polite, but their attitude completely changed after I joined. They also failed to provide any necessary information during the sign-up process. I strongly recommend reconsidering before taking a membership here. I asked to speak with the manager( Martin) don't know if he gave real name and was told to wait. After waiting for 10 minutes, I approached the reception desk again, only to find the manager busy on the computer. He rudely informed me that no booking had been made. I have three kids, and they claimed only one of them had a booking. How is it possible that out of three kids, only one was booked?

Fantastic experience: Great gym

Negative experience: Myself and my wife decided to get fit and go swimming, twice this week we have gone and been turned away because the pool is full and they are doing swimming lessons. It's the school holidays, can't lessons be done during the day and not after people finish work???

Fantastic experience: Good facilities, always nice and clean. The small pool is not very deep at all so not so good for getting your 4 year old to learn to swim when she can stand up all the time. Nice area to play as well, a slide and a giant connect 4. The life guards around the small pool don't seem very happy though but the staff on reception are always happy and helpful. They also have a really good physio department.

Positive experience: Great place for casual workout. Covers most activities for one who wants to be fit. Not for professional or hard core in my view .

Fantastic experience: It's a wonderful place to do some exercise, trainers are all helpful, overall a nice place to go.

Positive experience: Very Good gym but the parking ruins it for me. Can easily forget everyday typing your registration number on the iPad. I have to pay a 60-100 pound fine now. let’s hope this is the last one otherwise will move to another gym instead.

Fantastic experience: Kids pool area was lovely and clean.

Fantastic experience: Best staff. Good classes

Fantastic experience: Absolutely FANTASTIC. Superb facilities and the supervision at my “REFRESH Supervised Gym Session” was caring, knowledgeable and kind on my skinny body!

Fantastic experience: We had a busy day getting to swimming then to hear it was full.We were upset.One of the receptionists heard this and started looking for one of the rist bands for us.She found it,nice place and workers.

Positive experience: Could repair stuff that breaks immediately or even replace quick at taking money from your account. But generally very good service and always very clean

Fantastic experience: Nice & clean with helpful staff.

Negative experience: Can't even swim without online nonsense.. ..

Fantastic experience: Really easy to enter and find a locker. Lots of changing rooms.

Fantastic experience: Very good pool. We liked it alot

Negative experience: Thought I would try Blackburn pool for a change, I have never see a more dirty changing areas,showers & pool !!!

Fantastic experience: Great clean place good deals

Fantastic experience: Great Gym/Pool, Fantastic Staff

Fantastic experience: Great gym, very helpful and pleasant staff.

Positive experience: Decent gym facilities. Sauna steam room in good working order

Fantastic experience: Fantastic pool and great for my brother, who is a wheelchair user.

Negative experience: Yet another trip to try to go to the pool. Apparently booked up. Not clear from website that you can book in advance. Had to pay for parking just to be turned away. 5 years since last aborted trip to BwD leisure pool. Won't try again

Fantastic experience: Staff at reception fantastic customer service sauna steam room always nice and hot clean swimming pool good overall 8 out of 10

Negative experience: Low heat in the steam room, mentioned thus to staff and it still has not been sorted.

Fantastic experience: Helpful staff. I really enjoyed this place. ☺️

Fantastic experience: Very nice and clean place Love it

Fantastic experience: Great place. Nice atmosphere and good equipment

Fantastic experience: really nice specially pool sona and steam

Fantastic experience: Great pool & facilities with friendly, helpful staff.

Fantastic experience: Everyone has been really encouraging and helpful, and everything from where things are to the different things on offer have been explained to me. It’s been great!

Fantastic experience: Great place to workout and relax at the sauna. Great staff and facilities.

Negative experience: Used it to try and get fit, the car park used to be free, now they’ve got sharks patrolling the water to charge you £100 Avoid at all costs and use a leisure centre with free parking

Fantastic experience: One of the better gyms in Blackburn; maybe not have as many machines or space as other gyms but it has the basics. If you're creative you can get round not having variety of machines. Gym is tidy so no weights littered around.

Positive experience: Was clean and looked organised. Staff could do with being a bit more welcoming.Lane swimming was too busy though, too many people in the pool so had to leave before my usual lengths.

Positive experience: Staff are really nice and friendly, for the amount it costs for the gym you can't really complain. In my opinion the gym equipment in places like JD and DW are far superior however finding a parking spot or equipment during peak times at this place is not an issue in comparison. One thing that you need to be very careful of is the ANPR cameras (unrelated to the gym) as the car park is owned by the council. If you don't log in your details don't be Suprised to find a fixed penalty notice in the post. So bloody annoying!

Positive experience: Very good, clean environment.

Fantastic experience: Nice swim this morning, only 4 other people in the public side of the pool. Was nice to see children enjoying their lessons as well.

Fantastic experience: Friendly & professional staff. Pilates with trainer Linda on Thursday morning brilliant. Great for older beginners.

Negative experience: Update- I left this gym because I received a £100 PCN from the Euro Car Parks crooks despite never using their car park and stopping outside. Even though they have a agreement in the evening with the leisure centre to allow it's members to use the car park via tablet login inside leisure centre. The computer/iPad was frozen and could not enter details. ECP never offered me the 'discounted' rate and have been harassing me since 2023. When approaching the Leisure Centre staff they won't help and say it's 'nothing to do with us, Private car park'. As a result, I never renewed my membership due to these parking arrangements and do not recommend this gym. I have gone to an alternative gym in Blackburn that has 3 hours free parking, no issues since joining and 24 hours. Services are accessible with no restrictive timings.Facilities seem to have a high level of cleanliness and maintenance, in contrast to my previous gym. Staff are polite and approachable, leading me to buy a full annual membership. I would provide 5 stars , if lockers were fully working. Currently, a significant portion of lockers are faulty. Also the adjacent council owned multi-storey car park allowed for use by members, was clearly designed for "Mr Bean" sized cars. I drive a 6 seat passenger vehicle and navigating them bends on alternating levels is a nightmare.

Fantastic experience: Great facilities. Reasonable pricing. Helpful staff.

Fantastic experience: All good and thanks for giving us the chance to keep fit & healthy for no money. I have a problem booking some lessons on waitlist. We turn up to finding that the class is short, some people don't turn up. And don't inform the gym. Therefore I miss the lesson.

Fantastic experience: Great gym and swimming pool. Friendly staff

Positive experience: Very clean, good facilities but the water was absolutely freezing!! Don't think I will hurry back unfortunately, Such a shame, we were shivering.

Positive experience: Nice and spacious swimming pool, but only for 1 hour time

Positive experience: Lovely pool, however sessions are a little too short in my opinion and the pool is sometimes quite cold, overall a nice experience though, I would recommend going for a swim here, prices are very fair indeed.

Fantastic experience: Gym is of a good standard. Swimming Pools are worth checking out

Positive experience: An upgraded gym, double pool if and a sauna and steam room, every is acceptable nothing special and nothing too disappointing. Classes are included in membership too.

Fantastic experience: I like the fact that there's not much waiting around when it comes to machines and there's plenty of cardio equipment to go round. I would suggest 1 thing for back exercise a hypertension machine wouldn't go amis. Apart from that it's got everything you need.

Fantastic experience: went swimming for the first time here today, it was great, the family loved it, we'll be back

Fantastic experience: Fantastic range of activities from gym - All sorts of classes and a clean, warm pool. If activity isn’t your bag on that day - take a steam and or sauna. Super helpful, friendly and supportive staff. I think you could spend a month here and try something new every day. An absolute amazing facility with value I have rarely seen.

Negative experience: Changing stalls could be cleaner for sure. Nowhere to put away pram even when folded, as all the big lockers were taken or just closed. Also couldn't use the small pool with my baby even though it wasn't being used! Had to go in the big pool and get in the way of serious swimmers, don't understand as there were plenty of lifeguards bored to death, one surely could watch the small pool?! Also paid parking, really?

Fantastic experience: Great place friendly staff nice gym.

Fantastic experience: I would like to go swimming wver6 single day from now on.

Positive experience: Good choice of classes. The gym is a bit small so at busy times you have to wait for equipment to be free. The price doesn’t reflect the facilities. There should be a gym only membership, because at the moment it’s the most expensive place in town and it’s council run so it should be a bit cheaper.

Positive experience: They have special times for disabled people learning older learning they also do children in a small side of the pool excellent service very friendly and also very cheap

Fantastic experience: My favourite place to exercise and unwind

Fantastic experience: Every morning I go for my morning swim from 8 am for a good hr ,the pool is warm ,the atmosphere is calming and it's very clean .Really sets me up for the day ,I enjoy coming to Blackburn leisure centre .

Positive experience: Swimming for a pound, joined up! Free parking, only issue is the cleanliness of the floors around the edges of toilets and showers, really dirty im afraid.

Fantastic experience: Can not wait to get back I'm the sorna and steel room again

Fantastic experience: A Blackburn town centre facility.,thumbs up from me.

Fantastic experience: Fantastic people and facilities, very welcoming and helpful

Fantastic experience: great place n my kids really enjoy it a***

Positive experience: The gym is quite good now with the new equipment and other facilities.

Negative experience: I am very dissapointed with the service I had at Blackburn leisure centre today. I am a regular Customer using there swimming facilities and everytime I am there with my freinds (bearing in mind we are only 16). We always have something in common that a lifeguard is always picking on us (the same lifeguard) every week. I have a mild stutter and what I found was very inappropriate and DISCRIMINATORY, when I was talking to him he had imitated my stutter which i find absolutely unacceptable and disgusting. I was thinking of buying a membership with leisure centre. But at this rate no way. I just don't feel comfortable. (not all staff) only this one lifeguard. If nothing is done I will take this further due to discrimination of my illness.

Fantastic experience: I absolutely love this place for the peuce you get free swimming and sauna or the gym and a large number of classes which would be very expensive with no membership I just think this place is great to make you feel good and if you can't get there they have videos on the app to do at home it's great

Fantastic experience: Just started going back swimming here at nights. Very clean and very quiet. The staff I have spoken to have been very helpful and kind.

Positive experience: Can't say much for the gym however went swimming today. the pool area is nice and big, and the slides are a great extra. The changing rooms are communal which is great for families like myself where me and my partner take the kids together. However. To the negatives. The changing rooms could do with more regular cleaning especially with the recent events. There's hair and rubbish all over the floor (not entirely the leisure centres fault moreso the disrespectful people who don't clean up after themselves. Also the pool albeit big could use a tiny bit more heating to it to say it's a "family swim' slot. The pool is chilly when you get in. Great for older kids who will splash and move to keep themselves warm, but I wouldn't recommend bringing a baby or a toddler who can't swim yet. The swim session was 1hr30 long. We had to get out after 40minutes as my youngest was literally turning blue around the mouth and couldn't stop shivering. So absolutely fantastic for older ones. However I'd look elsewhere for taking little ones who can't swim yet.

Negative experience: Before covid with a refresh membership a swimming session was £1.50. Now the price has gone up to £4.50 even with a membership.

Positive experience: Good , but sometimes water is cold . And one more think , upstairs when you sit on balcony very very hot .can be some of ventilation as parents can't sit and watch when kids have swimming lessons .

Negative experience: This gym used to be alright but in the last year or more it has gone downhill. I wouldnt recommend this place to new comers. I froze my account due to the pandemic and also i never used the gym . I joined because i liked the classes. Yet i've discovered you can only freeze your account for up to 3 nonths. After this they start taking money out your account. Unbeknown to me you have to tell them if you want to keep it frozen! So a good job i checked my account. Also its a nightmare parking up as you have to input your registration all the time. There are lots of people who have ended up with fines. Also the strike system is a joke! My advice safe your money for somewhere that cares about you and dosnt treat you like a number!

Negative experience: Staff are no longer enthusiastic and approachable. Poor approach to covid which has encouraged many members to leave and they're very unhelpful.

Negative experience: This was once a great gym and it seems that ever since covid came along they've gone down hill.. Big change in staff, no banter like before and gym users jumping at the opportunity to complain about others forgetting to wipe. No common sense approach from staff members.

Positive experience: Good facilities, big car park, good membership prices

Fantastic experience: Lovely environment and can get most of my activities done. Lee is one of the best health improvement officer working their too

Negative experience: Arrived on time when small pool was about to open for re:fresh card holders and got informed we have to wait an hour in the queue to get in without any explanation why.Absolute joke

Negative experience: theres nothing on the website saying slides arnt open during the morning swim and half the pool was closed off... all the kids wanted to go on the slides and were disappointed getting told they didn't open till 1pm. this information should be on the website

Negative experience: Showers have been mediocre since November and today they packed up completely. Freezing cold showers which a lot of the members were unhappy about. Lack of shower cubicles for the amount of members, poor quality pressure and lukewarm showers. Blackburn leisure is there any chance I can freeze my membership while you sort your facilities out?

Negative experience: Poor customer service. Useless website. As we made the trip over to Blackburn for a special visit to see the new facilities we were highly disappointed to be told the next session is at 4pm. Not what the timetable said online seconds before entering the leisure centre. Then we were told that all the wristbands were sold. Absolutely no post online stating its full, paid for car park which was now money wasted as well as petrol. Wont be visiting again. We went to a place in Chorley called all seasons that appeared to be both cheaper and a longer stay we stayed for 3 hours at chorley and had a fantastic time so I highly recommend going there instead of blackburn

Negative experience: Ok facilities..classes, small gym however some staff are very rude and poor customer service..

Positive experience: More or less everything in one place but badminton not always available in the weekend

Fantastic experience: Very clean and ample facilities. Free parking at week end and above all cheerful and friendly staff.

Negative experience: So my 4yr old was accepted to start swimming lessons on a 9week course. Bearing in mind this was my childs very first lesson and never had any swimming lessons beforehand he was a little nervous at what to expect. 2 young girls who were the so called 'instructors' lead around 5 kids into the pool, threw some floats in and off they went splashing about. My child however was very frightened and needed reassurance as his fear was it may be to deep to go in. His dad who was with him at the sides did everything possible to reasure him that it was ok. 10mins later, no improvement, floods of tears and a terrified screaming child had emerged. His dad had offered to go in the water with him but they said no. As i watched on, i thought maybe one of them would use their initiative and get in the pool to show him that it was ok and help grow his confidence, but instead they happily watched the other kids jump about and squirt rubber ducks . I would never in a million years recommend this place for swimming lessons. The team here are in no way professional and had no idea what they're doing. We explained this to manager and she had no concern whatsoever over it. She clearly has no experience at the her job the same way the 2 instructors didnt. Take your children to a reputable place with real swimming instructors. STAY WELL AWAY FROM THIS DISGUSTING PLACE.

Positive experience: Lovely clean warm showers provided lovely staff and a life guard giving hacks when learning to dive but things like noodles dive sticks goggles all that are too expensive

Negative experience: Every time I come here long delays and scraps of paper put on reception expressing over 1 hour delays or even closed. This is frustrating to say the least when all you want to do is come swimming and can’t... this has to be a staff issue as the pool is plenty big enough. Oh and if you want a drink whilst you’re waiting you then have another scrap of paper telling you the machine doesn’t work. The staff really don’t care either unfortunately, they just seem to shrug it off. Unacceptable

Fantastic experience: Attending Blackburn and Darwen Leisure centres are lots of fun All the reception ,domestic , cafe and instructors are professional efficient and charming.

Negative experience: Went for a swim with kids. Had to wait 80 mins outside to be told the pool was full. Terrible service

Fantastic experience: Great for the sporty people very good gym and classes

Positive experience: Excellent facility . Only problem is if something broke down takes so long to fix

Fantastic experience: Excellent took grandchild we really enjoyed ourselves

Positive experience: Silly that in this say and age you can't pre book online and pay,as they only allow about 40 people in at any one time.if you don't get in your waiting an hour.pity as its a really nice place.

Positive experience: Nice clean gym, friendly staff, gets very busy for swimming unfortunately

Positive experience: Went swimming with young children in main pool. Clean throughout. Not too busy but limited changing cubicles, had to wait, but only bout 8 minutes. I think it's better for older kids & adults. For younger ones the old 'Waves' was more fun, & easier & safer to watch kids. Had a nice hour. Reasonably priced. Helpful staff.

Fantastic experience: Great leisure facilities just need to be aware of your not there early you'll get turned away cause pool is full as this happens to us

Negative experience: I went to this swimming baths today and was really disappointed with one female life guard! Who had really bad attitude towards me and my kids. I think in general towards the asian community she was being like that. I would advise you to recruit properly next time as we had to leave early. She was on duty today 22/7/19 between between 14:00 :16:00 in which time we left. I hope something is done about this as I will be taking matter further! And we wont be using these facilities again and will be posting on social media so more people are aware

Fantastic experience: Clean, friendly and affordable. Free parking.

Fantastic experience: Great swimming facilities. Open till late too which is handy for me.