Stafford Leisure Centre

Fantastic experience: Great service , helpful and friendly good food .

Positive experience: Very good leisure centre for the town. Reasonable prices. Friendly staff.

Fantastic experience: Really great customer service, especially from Will in the cafe. Drinks and food served were fresh and tasty and preparedon request. Changing rooms were very clean so clearly action has been taken since some of the earlier reviews.

Negative experience: Not even been here yet, but started calling to ask about the price of the open swim (as I couldn’t find any information about the pricing on their website or Facebook page anywhere) at about quarter to 5 in the evening, no one answered the phone at all, even though I phoned repeatedly for almost 20mins. When I phoned again at about quarter past 5 in the evening, I received an automated message saying they were closed, to check their website for opening times, and to try again later. I checked the website, it said they were open until 6pm on Saturdays, and even the google opening times said they were still open, so really confused and quite annoyed that no one answered the phone and then was told that it was closed, almost an hour before it is supposed to close.

Positive experience: I go to watch my grandson swimming , it's nice that they have a few toys and books for the little ones that are waiting

Negative experience: Not happy very bright lights in zumba class today no music equipment don't bother doing zumba. It'd too bright no music it's a shame suzie is a great instructor. But can't put music on. The big lights are too much for eyes it not good it needs a dimmer

Fantastic experience: Clean inside and coffee nice

Positive experience: Haven't been swimming for years so was looking forward to going. Found that people weren't using the lanes correctly. I'm a slow swimmer so was in the slow lane but people were using any lane so I felt under pressure to speed up which spoilt the experience. Will persevere though.

Fantastic experience: We love visiting here for swimming, the changing rooms and toilets are always brilliantly clean. The main pool is a little cool but the small pool is nice and warm they have so many things on there is always something to do. Public swim availability is really good. It's only the middle of the day that you can't go really due to swim school

Positive experience: It’s okay for a local leisure centre.

Positive experience: Not the best staff

Fantastic experience: Great place for physical activity. Pool staffed by professional trainers. My granddaughter learning swimming here and progressing very well

Fantastic experience: A great place to exercise, work out, swim, or just grab a coffee. Good, well maintained equipment and super helpful staff.

Positive experience: Main negative is parking should be free. Nice introduction of a coffee shop.

Positive experience: Yoga sessions have a great instructor.

Negative experience: I go swimming most weeks The changing rooms are always dirty often smell The toilets and showers are awful I don’t use anymore The pool is cold There are no rules re shoes in the changing rooms which should help but not many abide by them

Fantastic experience: WONDERFUL... THANKYOU, Just wish there were more lane space for the unprofessional.....as such...wanting to learn to be more professional with wider lanes please.......there were 5 closed lanes to us with only one person in each lane 12-1.30 today......!!??

Negative experience: Awful place. Changing rooms and shower area dirty and smelly. Shower area full of limescale and mould. One missing a door... Dire need of repairs and upgrade. Pool cold, thats when you can get to use the pool that is........ Also, every other leisure centre you have to remove your shoes when entering changing area. So why not here.. Go elsewhere if you can.

Positive experience: The reception is bright with a cafe and some retail items. Often, the gate to enter the leisure centre is left open and anyone can walk through; doesn't give any confidence that only members use the facilities. The changing rooms need a thorough clean and the doors on cubicles need fixing - two hanging off. I will not use the showers there as they are often quite smelly. The equipment is ok, but again, you feel that the whole gym floor area would benefit from cleaning. I overheard one of the staff members saying that she was not happy about having to clean! Well, she's obviously in the wrong job!!! However, there is a good variety of equipment and some members of staff are very pleasant. Parking is good too, with two free hours.

Positive experience: The facilities are adequate but the changing rooms and toilets within them are a risk to anyone’s health! The aroma of pee is disgraceful, particularly when people are escorting children in and out! The staff are great, but cleaning desperately needs addressing! I feel for the disabled who have to use the disabled toilet within the changing rooms as they’re VERY UNHYGIENIC and at least need a more regular clean as the smell of ammonia seeps out to the main changing rooms! Very off putting… and agreed with another reviewer the cafe is expensive and the current seating is shocking.. visibility of watching children in the small pool is near on impossible!

Fantastic experience: I start coming to the gym here late October last year. Had several weeks off due to surgery so trying to get back into it at the moment but I can confidently say it’s a brilliant allrounder gym, perfect for every workout there is! It has a good variety of equipment for both cardio & strength training, including free weights and other hi-tech training equipment for use! I like coming first thing of a morning (around 8am) the gym isn’t too busy, and 9/10 times I can use all the equipment I want without having to wait!

Negative experience: Yet again turned up for swimming with an excited 2y/o only to be greeted with a sign on the desk as you walk in usually saying the pool is closed, although in this case it was somehow full. We arrived at 12.10 for the 12.30 swim and there was no queue, just one couple in front of us with their kids, equally as annoyed I think. Not sure how it can be full when you can't book ahead? The whole system needs looking at, it's an absolute joke. Not even anything on the facebook page, and when you try and call up nobody answers. Fully appreciate you can only fit so many people in a pool, but a simple booking form on the website, or at least updates on the facebook page would stop any issues. Try telling a 2 year old they can't go swimming when they've been excited all the way there. It's no fun.

Positive experience: Great place for a swim. Easy parking and entrance. Large changing area.

Fantastic experience: Very friendly staff, the facilities are very good. Always check online to see what's going on that day. The changing room is very good and the pool is lovely.

Negative experience: The facilities are absolutely disgusting. Went first thing in the morning last week and there was mouldy hair hanging off of everything in the showers, including the disbaled shower seat in the womens. In the other showers, you can see where the grout has filled with mould spores as they haven't been cleaned in many months and possibly years. There are piles of hair and rubbish dotted around in the showers and limescale/mould/more hair all up the cubicles. Dirtiest swimming pool I've ever been to. It was similar when I used to come a couple of years ago but not this bad! Places needs massive refurbishment and a cleaner. Rancid.

Negative experience: Multiple times have arrived at an alloted time with baby in arm for toddler splash at 8am to find it closed for another random reason. Considering the facilities available are bare minimum, you would like to think they could get someone to lifeguard a pool. My advice is find another pool or take a gamble if their site facilities are actually open.

Negative experience: It's alright when it's actually fully operational. Twice in a row now I've tried to take my daughter swimming and they've had issues which meant that we couldn't use the pool. I recommend finding elsewhere before getting your 1 year old ready to be there for 8am on a Sunday after a full week's worth of early mornings.

Fantastic experience: The gym is exceptionally good with lots of new machines and free weights from beginners to beasts swimming and classes are also included in the very good value for money price ..and no I'm not being paid for this review I just give credit where it's due...

Positive experience: Good sports facility and pool

Positive experience: Great facility. Car park is a bit small to host events.

Negative experience: I made a reasonable accessibility request over a month ago after the new gym layout and am being completely ignored by the general manager. It's upsetting and disheartening to know how little the requirements of disabled people are considered at this centre by the management.

Negative experience: Would be helpful if someone would answer the phone. This must be losing them so much business

Fantastic experience: Excellent, really clean and staff very friendly

Negative experience: Swimming pool is mostly close / half pool due to shortage of staffs although they are charging full membership fee every month but not providing service . It’s going on for last couple of months - terrible service

Fantastic experience: Take my 3 year old grandson regularly. The small pool is great for him but on two recent occasions we've had to use the big pool as the small was closed and it was SO cold, his little lips were blue so we left after half an hour.

Positive experience: Took my son to family swim. Nice pool, although water colder than I remember. Staff were friendly!

Positive experience: Nice pools, not sure about the shared changing facilities. Paying to park is a bit harsh , especially when you are using the facilities. Staff are okay, they don't listen to customers when you call up with query, they just talk at you. The cafe is nice and the other classes are well ran.

Fantastic experience: I can't praise the staff at the pool enough I am disabled and not been swimming in a long time staff were very helpful kind and considerate and the leisure centre is well equipped for disabled guests.

Negative experience: Absolute waste of time trying to get through on the telephone. Nobody ever answers !

Negative experience: Too many specialised classes, not enough open swim. The pool is too small, the old one at Riverside was Olympic sized, this one...isn't! They close half the pool off so you can't really swim because of the amount of people crammed into one small space. You can book a lane but you'll be sharing with 14 others. We're not sheep you know! It's clean though and the cafe is good but ludicrously expensive. My biggest bugbear, and the reason I will not go, is communal changing rooms. I mean...why? What was wrong with men's and women's changing rooms? Or are we meant to be going all Sam Smith on the situation?

Fantastic experience: Plenty of parking, light and airy foyer, always clean. Water was warm, workout room upstairs was a bit too warm. Cant wait to try the new cafe

Fantastic experience: Great fun and around £3 per person for an hours swim!

Fantastic experience: Clean friendly people. Watched my grandson do this swimming lesson. He getting on well and enjoyed me watching him swim. Family friendly ❤.

Fantastic experience: I went to an open meet at Riverside Swimming baths here. The pool is really nice with a lovely viewing area. Toilets and public areas are all very clean.

Negative experience: The only swimming pool I've ever known where you can't just go for a general swim during the day. Having 3 children under 5 I'm not allowed to take all so now 2 are going to nursery I thought it would be amazing to go weekly with my 1 year old as a hobby for both me and her. Apparently I'm not allowed to do this Maybe you should consider general swims in the day for people such as myself with more than 1 children. Pretty disappointed!

Fantastic experience: I absolutely like to visit this place with all of the options you can choose - classes, swimming pool or just visit the gym.

Positive experience: Been a member for about 10 months now, still trying to get into a routine that fits round work. I love Di's stretch and tone, Susie's yoga, Chloe's (?) bums & tums. Parking's a nightmare

Fantastic experience: It was very nice

Fantastic experience: Super selection of exercise classes and the only pool on town.

Positive experience: Good facilities and excellent instructors for the group classes. I do mainly Zumba. It would be good to have free parking for at least a couple of hours but at the moment you have to pay for that.

Fantastic experience: The gym is clean and has a good range of equipment. Staff are very friendly, and the personal trainers are very approachable for advice. The classes are accessible for people who have never been to a class before and not intimidating with trainers that are always lovely.

Negative experience: Shower and toilets in very poor condition. Limited time in pool and very cold...had numb fingers after an hour.

Fantastic experience: Always been good. Lots of changes. Fantastic staff. Great rehab swim sessions for recovery

Negative experience: Wonder they get any business given the time it takes them to answer the phone.

Fantastic experience: Friendly staff and brilliant badminton Court! We now try and attend every week

Negative experience: Sunday 20th Pool much colder than usual, changing rooms freezing, floors filthy, women’s showers disgusting and flooding almost as soon as you turn them on, not draining at all. I cannot believe this place is the only place to swim in Stafford, it is an embarrassment. Haven’t been there for 6 months as last visit was disappointing - this visit was worse.

Positive experience: Baby swimming classes are only okay… worst part is the pool is more often than not quite chilly and baby isn’t enjoying classes as much! Wasn’t such an issue in the summer, but with the winter coming up they’ve just put the prices of classes up but can’t manage to heat up the swimming pool, the babies should be always warm, for gods sake. Emailed them about this, never got a reply. Phones don’t get answered either

Negative experience: When I cancelled my membership I filled in the form but they forgot to tell me I had to cancel the standing order with the bank myself and then refused to refund me despite never using the service in that month

Positive experience: Only went swimming 2 pools, one main and one smaller pool Big enough and split into 60 minute sessions

Positive experience: Nice and clean but a single section is expensive to get me motivated to training

Fantastic experience: Joined a few weeks ago. Good facilities, clean, helpful and friendly staff

Negative experience: The female showers are awful, black mould, one cubicle is missing a door and very little water really let the centre down, only a full refurbishment will resolve this. The staff are welcoming and do their best with little resources.

Positive experience: Daughter trialling at the tumbling club looks a nice place from first impressions.

Positive experience: I'm a member since October and I'm pleased with the classes and facilities. I wish it was open in the evening over the weekends though.

Negative experience: Lovely pool. Lots of changing rooms and everywhere very clean. The showers are a disgrace. One out of the 4 works and this is a disabled shower with a fold up chair. They were old, dirty and the shower heads all need descale. What a let down.

Positive experience: Private showers for the swimming pool need upgrading and cleanliness. Everything else is good. Friendly staff

Positive experience: Everything is fine, the Pool is good, the gym is fine and the extra facilities are fine. I just find it, like most council places, very expensive, also because again like most council places, you have to pay to park.

Positive experience: The Staff here are friendly. The pool facilities are clean. Just remember some of the sessions you need to book in advance for. Also the car park is pay and display.

Positive experience: I am a member of Stafford Sub Aqua Club which meets here in the training room and pool every Wednesday evening at 8. Friendly easygoing staff. Wide range of facilities which I have previously used and all are excellent.

Negative experience: In the morning they told me that I can come in the evening to swim but when I came they told me it was full.they should have told me that I need to pre book in order to get a 100% guarantee

Negative experience: Overpriced garden center nearly 9 pound for a spud with filling.

Negative experience: I have tried several times to become a new member here and start swimming again but the website doesn’t allow to register without a membership number. So I drove to the Stafford leisure centre on Sunday 10.30 am but the building seemed closed as no lights on, all doors locked and no openings hours published. Tried calling again all day as Google states open till 3pm. Very frustrating.

Fantastic experience: Nice clean pool nice life guards nice recption very frenly place

Fantastic experience: People who work there are very friendly and supportive. They are under resourced but work very hard to ensure that customers are satisfied.I am a regular individual for swimming, I love it. The only thing which could be improved is to develop an IT system which will reduce receptionists work. People who attend swimming lessons can come and swim for practice. But they are not provided with access to book for their swimming online. It requires one to ring and book. It takes a lot of receptionist time and customers time (phones are not picked up immediately because they receptionist receive too many of these). Also, if people cancel, we cannot see it, it just need to ring and ring after every few minutes, I wish if we could see the cancellation online for us to book on ourselves instead of bothering the receptionists. It takes two lines of code to change this and save money. I will appreciate if can be changed. It just wastes everybody's time.

Fantastic experience: Love the variety of classes. Attention to cleaning and the friendly staff.

Positive experience: Had some problems booking online when it came to payment the page doesn't work, but when I try to phone up, they almost NEVER answer the phone.

Negative experience: It's a convenient place to do sport (I specifically play squash) but I waste up to 30 minutes of my week ringing to try and get through, week in week out. I appreciate the reception can be busy in peak hours, but it seems to take an age to get through regardless of when I ring. I hope they can sort this out but it has been the case for a few years now.

Positive experience: Great facilities and a good range of classes.

Negative experience: Long queue to get in. One member of staff more interested in making a coffee than helping visitors get in

Fantastic experience: Car park is not free,but the swimming lessons for kids are very organized and efficient

Fantastic experience: Great staff, and great facilities, they make it really easy to book anything in advanced, based on what type of membership you have

Negative experience: Facilities are good albeit way too expensive for most of the towns population ... probably adds to why kids are overweight as swimming used to be the affordable family exercise.

Negative experience: Taking my son swimming as I want to try and teach him myself, but can only last around 20 mins in the little pool as its cold and his lips start turning purple. Such a shame as a nice leisure centre. Pool too cold for kid. Mentioned this about 4 times when been there

Negative experience: Swimming is a bit of a joke. Lanes are segregated per estimated speed, 2 slow, 2 med, 2 fast. Med and fast lanes 8 swimmers per single lane, with no overtaking so it only takes one or two to be in the wrong lane or show no lane etiquette for your 45 min (but you pay for a 1 hour slot) swim to be ruined. Swimming in pools around the country as I work away a lot, many state a suggest pace range per lane, so you can seed yourself to your ability eg fast lane 100mtrs between 1m15s to 1m45s, med lane 1m45s to 2m30s and so on. Please SLC sort something out as this cannot go on. I have complained, but told they are working to guidelines ( but hazard a guess not to meet customer satisfaction)

Negative experience: Can't book a family swim online doesn't make it clear. On hold for 8 min to be told have to be members for what was a council service. Privitisation at its worse

Positive experience: Phones not always answered, but good venue for squash

Fantastic experience: I take my daughter for swimming lessons here and she has come on leaps and bounds as she had lost all her confidence she had b4 lock down .staff are lovely and changing rooms are spotlessly clean xx

Positive experience: Fair leisure, clean and tidy, nice staff, good for exercise, swimming. Going frequently there, a place to spend your time wisely!

Positive experience: We take our kid to swimming lessons. We watch from up stairs. If you pay for a sauna don't bother sit upstairs in the viewing area and you will lose a few gallons of sweat. It's that hot up there no wonder the changing rooms are freezing. Also the shower never work.

Negative experience: Have tried to call on 4 different days to book swimming as its supposed to be good for you when pregnant, no ones ever picked up the phone, maybe more staff would help? Really dissappointing as really wanted to start swimming but if I can't get through no other way to book

Fantastic experience: Fantastic team : Luke, Netty, Ellie, Melissa and Sam all very helpful go above and beyond. Great classes. Harriet in reception is so polite and professional great first impression.

Fantastic experience: Friendly staff, decent gym and facilities for other activities like swimming. Worth value of membership 38.50£ Only disappointment thing, is things like squash are not included with price! ‍♂️‍♂️‍♂️

Negative experience: Apparently you can't buy a coffee as they are too busy and the machine hasn't been turned on. You need to brush up on your manners a bit - you know who you are.

Fantastic experience: Great Leisure Centre with lots of choice and very good fitness instructors.

Negative experience: Great if you can get through to book. They NEVER answer the phone and we've had constant problems booking online

Negative experience: Woeful management. For example a lot of the staff are even unaware of what time the gym opens. Was told by three members of staff that gym was back to pre Covid hours of 7:30 at the weekend so have my pre work out and head down for 7:30. Young lady in reception let’s us in because she is under the impression that gym is open at 7:30 only to find that it doesn’t open til 8. This is not an isolated incident and some of the staff are complaining about lack of organisation. Email to head office to follow.

Fantastic experience: First exercise on prescription. Alison was exceptional. Instructive patient and very very helpful

Fantastic experience: All covid measures are in place,having to become a member even for swimming as to track and trace. Booking on line for every activity. Friendly and helpful staff.

Negative experience: Very unfriendly receptionist didnt say a word when I walked in just stared at me then snarled at me for asking about discounts. £5 is expensive for a leisure centre swimming. No choice as nowhere else to swim in stafford. Needs customer service training.

Negative experience: Good facilities but they never answer the phone