The Venue Leisure Centre

Fantastic experience: My favourite place to go in Borehamwood. Excellent gym facilities. Lovely Cafe serving Costa coffee. Staff members are friendly and welcoming. Particular shout out to Rose and Donna in the cafe who have helped me get through January. Steve and Huri for their excellent yoga classes. Chrissie at reception for always greeting me with a smile. Steve and Beata who work in the gym. Genuinely, couldn't give this place a better rating. Swimming pool and changing facilities are good too. On site parking. Definitely worth the membership. Thank you.

Fantastic experience: Lovely place and very modern and friendly.

Negative experience: The soft play is absoloutley Filthy and needs closing to clean. This was in the morning so just proves this place does not get cleaned ever.

Positive experience: The Venue leisure centre is probably a below average place relative to other leisure centres. There are a limited set of activities- just gym, swim and steam/sauna. No badminton or squash or a sports hall. Gym is small with limited space and equipment is old. Pool - there is the main pool 25m and a baby pool. Again the level of care is missing and the gutters are growing mould in places. There is a small cafe. There is also a small hall which is generally rented out for private activities. Car parking is available though has to be paid between 8.00 am - 6.30 pm

Fantastic experience: Excellent place and centre..surprisingly quiet and the only non bookable pool within the M25...surprised that it had no sauna!.first class pool, changing and showers

Fantastic experience: From out of town. Super accommodating staff, opened side pool just for us. Soft play great for small kids. Very impressed

Negative experience: The one set of mirrors they have in the gym (which is unheard of) are like circus mirrors so they distort your reflection making it impossible to check your form which seems dangerous to me. The downstairs studio is always dirty from parties or tutoring and the equipment in there is old and tattered. Parking isn’t free and reception staff seem so disinterested and unfriendly. Such a shame, the site is big and has potential but is too expensive for what it offers.

Fantastic experience: Great facilities, my daughter really loves her swimming lessons, cafe and soft play.

Fantastic experience: I have a swim membership, very friendly staff,very happy I chose the venue

Fantastic experience: Had a great swim today. Staff were lovely and helpful.

Negative experience: Rejoined after 4 years and the same old gym equipment that needs a revamp woth some maxhines. Also a cafe that never opens. 10.30am and no sign of staff opening it. Some said it opens 8.30. It never has. People wanta snack, breakfast before or after a swim and workout. It's appalling. People get fed up and cross over to the petrol station or a cafe up the road. The standards are appalling. Also the gym lockers. Bring back padlocks or key loackables. I go to a boxing gym and we have our own keys. Introduce a nice sauna and fall short everywhere else. I wish I chose David Lloyds.

Fantastic experience: Great gym, soft play centre, orthopedist and service. Recommend to any gym rat.

Positive experience: Swimming timetable is not correct!

Positive experience: Softplay is lovely for kids but it needs a thorough deep clean. Additionally a coke can was found in the ball pall which is a health and safety hazard. There was a lot of dust and food bits which should not be there first thing in the morning. Somebody needs to monitor the cleanliness of the softplay.

Negative experience: Tried to order a coffee today . After waiting 5min had to ask member of staff behind the counter if I can get one to be told they are closed . This was 20min before their official closing time .

Negative experience: Absolutely terrible experience for my friend who hosted her kids party there. The previous party wasn't cleaned up when she arrived, no sign posting where the party was happening and the soft play room that the kids were in had the air con broken. Most horrifically of all they had forgotten to get the food and drink for the party ready despite my friend pre booking this. I didn't see one staff member help in the soft play or party room the whole time I was there. The only saving grace where the people working at Costa in The Venue were extremely friendly (hence 2 stars). I would avoid using it for kids party at all cost!

Negative experience: When I've been before it's been fine, for a swim, but today was the second time bring turned away because the pool is at capacity. There doesn't seem to be a way to know this before arriving, so you just have to take your chances and hope it's not full. Would it be possible to have something on the website saying how full it is? I've seen this before with some venues

Positive experience: Good leisure center, but parking is a rip off.

Fantastic experience: I am only rating the customer service experience that the mother and especially the daughter Diya provide at the front desk as the face of the Venue. She is an efficient professional, extremely approachable on the front desk, and very well informed for her role. She gave a really good honest tour of the facility. She sets an exemplary standard her colleagues need to take note of, recently experienced unhelpful attitudes from other reception employees - given am a new member and unsure of the facilities operations they give the impression they are being put out by any requests from the public at the front desk. More enthusiasm less attitude. So far have enjoyed coming in to swim yet to use the gym or do any classes.

Positive experience: I went there for one day free pass and also booked a massage. The massage was amazing, booked it with Martine via Treatwell. Will go back. The venue toilets are dated and in need of a refurb. Would not sign up to a membership yet even though I work across the road from it. Also if you don’t like screaming children in the pool, not a place for you.

Fantastic experience: Very helpful and friendly receptionist. Will be trying new classes as there is plenty to choose from.

Negative experience: Went to buy ice late the lady at the till was not having a good morning as she was late to open. I asked if i can get ice late and a cheese and ham panini, she said it was £7.85, so I paid using my card. She made my coffee first, then went to the freezer to get the ice, she took the ice bag out banged the bag on the floor to break the ice, then without washing her hands put her dirty hands inside the ice bag and put ice inside my drink. She then asked me to go and look for my panini on the cold food section so she can put it on the grill, but there was no panini left. She said she's going to make it at the back, again without washing her hands she went to make my panini. I took the food as I already paid for it before she started making it and I was running late for my session so I didn't have time to argue with her. I had to throw everything in the bin as the hygiene was literally below 1 star.

Negative experience: Service is poor in both reception and cafe. Venue you need to invest in customer care!!

Fantastic experience: My favourite gym and leisure centre.

Negative experience: Very disappointed,the water was very cold ,the place is very dirty and the pool is always busy with teenagers that are jumping and do whatever they want,the staff don't bother. We could only be there for few minutes and my daughter lips turned blue so here moments of fun end up very fast. Changing area is mixed women's,mens and kids,filthy and we had to wait 15 min in the queue to use one of the hair dryer(they provide 3 dryers with only 2 of them working in both sides mans and women). Just check before you register your kids to the swimming club. I give 2 starts becouse despite the conditions and the cold water my daughter had 10 minutes of happiness.

Negative experience: Very disappointed I pay for my daughter to go swimming the life guards don't really care. Most of the time the pool it full of teenage boys who do whatever they want no consideration for small kids at all the life guards seems not to care.

Negative experience: Dirty, overpriced and poorly managed leisure centre. Don’t bother going swimming with a baby or toddler the baby pool is hardly even open and the main pool is too cold for little ones. Not that they tell you before you enter with a small child. Soft play dirty and cafe service terrible, old stale food and nothing healthy to eat or drink. Reception staff also very rude.

Negative experience: Just cancelled 2 membership for swimming absolutely disappointed all ants everywhere where u sit down while watching your kids swim looks like haven't been cleaned for awhile ...changing room and toilets are filthy too a few months back emailed them to tell them and now it's gone worse . Such a shame when my kids started it was clean and decent need to sort the cleaning issues out here

Positive experience: Nice place just wish it had more changing rooms for babies. There’s only a few and it’s always busy

Fantastic experience: Everything I want. Mcdonalds nandos pizza hut a leisure centre and so on... Great parking

Negative experience: Staff are so rude all so miserable and depressed and have no enthusiasm or work ethic your problem here is your problem and they look at you asif you asif you have something on your face

Negative experience: Paid 7.10 for the pool. Arrived at 8:30 pm and only had a small space for 6 people, with 2 more arriving, who were swimming at varying speeds (fast and slow). Usually there’s an extra lane for fast swimmers but all the other lanes were used by the trainees. It was probably overwhelming for some people. Not a great value for money. I only stayed for 20 mins as had a difficult time to pace myself.

Negative experience: Went swimming here . Entance is nice , very modern , nice staff . Expensive for a swim , nearly £7 if you're not a member or have a leisure card . Swimming pool changing area nice and big lots of lockers . Was being cleaned whilst I was there . Pool itself is heated so not cold just warm enough . I haven't been here for years so was pretty disgusted at black mould water marks around the whole pool under the ledge . Can't they clean this off ? . Very unsightly . And off putting . Otherwise it was fine .

Fantastic experience: I go here for the swimming. Can't fault the place at all. By far the cleanest changing rooms and pool. Friendly staff that always have a smile.

Positive experience: Changing rooms for the swimming pool are very small and dont appear to be cleaned very often. Pool is on the colder side and the casual swim session only allows a couple lanes. Good gym there though

Fantastic experience: Great soft play and good cafe

Negative experience: A very dirty place, children run around unattended, not playing attention to the younger one , and "MUMS " drinking coffee not pay any attention to them children. There is no control at all of noone of staff Their role ends when you buy the tickets

Fantastic experience: Great place excellent staff

Positive experience: Water in the showers hasn't got a thermostat so you get boiling hot water without a way to cool it down. Very disappointed.

Negative experience: Pool lockers get broken into. Very dirty and unhygienic environment. Staff could not give two hoots about anything. Rotten to the core and should be closed down. It really is that grim. Grotty place to have to go and work out at. If 0 star rating was available it would be more in line and the pool is a right dive, excuse the punch line and is freezing cold

Positive experience: Fit for purpose no frills. However its a pity management don't seem to value cleanliness . The venue was update a couple of yrs back but no-one thought of sorting out more efficient drainage of water pooling in grp changing rooms, causing a health hazard as only cleaned out once a day it seems.

Fantastic experience: Best gym I have been to. Friendly staff and good facilities.

Negative experience: The pool has water. That's the star, the staff could not care at all, not helpful one bit from the front desk, canteen, poolside, cleanliness is shocking just walking around with a hosepipe spraying everything not a drop of cleaning detergent.

Negative experience: Very rude staff member not recommending to any one

Fantastic experience: Brilliant place to have a swim with the kids. Great service supplied.

Positive experience: I watched my grandchildren swimming. Lots of fun with foam boards. The cafe has been upgraded since I was last there, much better.

Positive experience: Smell of chlorine a bit strong, sometimes my skin is soar. At the changing area not cleaned properly or often.

Negative experience: Super busy they let too many people in the swimming pool it’s was so difficult to swim!!

Fantastic experience: This is such a lovely, open and friendly, high quality fitness and leisure centre, with 25m swimming pool, varied fitness classes, and state of the art gym. It is great value for money, offering memberships and pay as you go, with well maintained facilities and essential. The changing rooms and lockers upstairs are clean and modern, the only downside is that the changing rooms and showers downstairs are unisex and group organised although also recently renovated.

Positive experience: Took my Grandchildren aged 3 and 4 for a visit to the play zone. Nice enough experience, decent play area and cafe, just lacked that extra star.

Fantastic experience: The pool is adequately heated, the showers very warm, the reception and pool staff are friendly and polite. I understand that a range of swimming/pool activities are available, but these are not for me. Prices are reasonable as I am not a regular/member, though I will be looking into membership. My only criticism would be the presence of stains in the gulleys and pool edges, other than that, it's a great pool.

Fantastic experience: This place is brilliant. I had requested information on how to give special recognition to Matt in the swimming area but my emails were sent back. Please thank Matt for making us all feel safe.

Fantastic experience: Lovely place, very clean, great facilities would recommend.

Negative experience: The cafe has a hygiene rating of 3 which for a Costa Coffee is quite shocking, the kitchen must be dirty to get such a low rating. The staff are insanely slow and disintrested so not suprising that they dont clean properly.

Fantastic experience: This centre has a swimming pool, swim classes, gym, egym and general classes. I have used the swimming and gym facilities only. My kids go swimming classes. Facilities wise its good. There is even a physio available by pre booking Reception is relaxed and helpful. Costa has opened up inside. Just wish it was open for longer.

Negative experience: My experience has been good so far but today was different. the swimming teacher was extremely rude, she ignored and did not register my son on time, she said he has the wrong cap and needed to go to reception part way through the lesson to get the correct cap, which was unreasonable given we hadn't received prior notice of the cap requirement and my son was in his swimming gear, she then shouted at my son to get in the pool in a very rude unprofessional manner that made me feel very uncomfortable and I had to ask her not to speak to him like that again. I made a compliant to reception and to the manager and requested that the lesson be supervised as I was concerned at the way she spoke to my child. I was told she would be spoken to after the lesson and given the option to pull my child out of the lesson midway. I returned to give my son the cap, she said it was no longer required, I asked her not to speak to my son in a rude manner again and she came and started shouting at me, I politely requested she not speak to me like that and she carried on shouting so I walked away and made a second compliant to the management team. I was surprised at her manner and that she felt enabled to display such negative behaviours.

Fantastic experience: Really friendly and helpful staff. Very clean and well maintained swimming pool and changing rooms.

Positive experience: Plenty to do but the soft play is a little basic and can be very overcrowded when the larger one is rented for a private party. The main pool is cold and the family pool is unfortunately rarely open (1 hour on a Sunday) so not great for kids to swim. Hopefully the family pool will be open again soon (although I doubt it) and then this will be much better for families ans children.

Fantastic experience: Great for a swim, although the pool is often doesn't feel very warm, one could almost say it actually is cold!

Negative experience: Soft play areas are very dirty,full of dust and dirt.The air feels very unpleasant and dusty,especially in the big soft play area.The areas should be cleaned frequently but i have been going for the past 2 years but the place is still the same.Children deserve a cleaner environment to play in.

Positive experience: Public pools are my ocd and I really don't enjoy swimming in public pools. I went for my daughter who fortunately isn't like me. The pool was mostly ok. There was debris on the floor of the pool, but fortunately, I couldn't touch it. The open showers were basic and there were only a few, I discovered the group ones, which allowed some privacy. It was obvious that the floor area was cleaned regularly and the toilets appeared to be checked and cleaned. Overall, we had a good swim and I would recommend heading there as it is ok for a public pool.

Fantastic experience: Nice place but jacuzzi / sauna is always close

Fantastic experience: Swimming pool and changing rooms are clean and maintained well. My go to place for swimming when there are other pools closer to my home.

Positive experience: Took my one year old grandson there yesterday. We were very pleased with the facilities. Ok, the tables weren't cleaned but I'm fine with wiping it down (with little ones, you come attached to wet wipes). However, the issue I had was that the children weren't separated. There were older children playing with toddlers, and the parents seemed to have set up camp inside the play area, sitting on the floor, ignoring their children's behaviour. There was one little boy determined to push other children down, etc and the parents were too busy chatting to see. My daughter never left her toddler's side, after hearing other children telling him to go away "this is our station", etc. Most other soft play centres have age limits and I think this should be imposed.

Positive experience: The swimming facilities are on par. Great venue with great amenities. Gym showers could do with a bit of a refurb. Other than that. Great place to attend for your overall fitness experience.

Positive experience: Changing rooms good do with a deep clean but apart from that great

Fantastic experience: Banging spin studio, well worth a session.

Positive experience: Recently refitted gym is very nice. The Egym is worth checking out, you can lose time in there very easily. The pool could do with a spruce up and the showers in said pool area are sometimes very cold, but it's still a great facility to use. Any issues can be reported to reception and the lovely staff sort things out very quickly and efficiently.

Negative experience: The pool is frequently unavailable! The pool is closed on Saturday afternoons from 3pm onwards, either for parties or for swimming clubs. Sundays is another day when the leisure centre rents out the bulk of the pool to swimming clubs and restricts the public use to a few lanes causing a crowded swimming experience. During the gala season, the pool is also usually closed for an entire weekend day. In summary the “community” pool is mostly used for profit and my suggestion would be to drive to Bushey or Potters Bar leisure centre pools, they appear to be more community focused or their councils are a little more switched on and don’t get walked over by the management of the centre.

Fantastic experience: Nuce place. I take my kids to swimming lessons. I am very happy about the place. Swimming teachers are amazing. My kids they are there for 6 months and they are both level 3

Fantastic experience: Friendly staff always helpful everyone made welcome

Negative experience: Borehamwood leisure centre is filthy, we visited the soft play area which is thick with dirt and grim. Most equipment is ripped and damaged due to older children playing in the younger partitions. The food café has a health rating of 3 but think this is a little too high due to surfaces where food is served not being clean. I have attached images of the area where you can sit and watch your children play whilst eating. It was difficult to capture the glass as my phone created a glare but it is greasy from top to bottom clear signs of never being cleaned with food splattered all over it. You can just about make out a small motion of a cloth wiping across the glass where the tables are placed. The floor is black with food spillages rotted in, a mop has never been wiped over the floor. I'm surprised this part of the centre is still open given this is where children play and food is consumed. Overall the centre has great potential, the struggle of finding staff that actually care and take pride in their jobs is real and across all industries but this really comes down to the operations manager not doing regular checks. (In another note maybe a little customer service training for the reception desk wouldn't go a miss) I would have given this feedback direct to the manager but the staff working didn’t seem to know who the manager was. Fingers crossed the establishment improves before someone catches something from the filth.

Positive experience: It was a good set up in the pool but the water was really cold so the kids were not really happy to stay for too long

Fantastic experience: A great leisure centre in Borehamwood with first class gym and full-size swimming pool. Very friendly staff. Well-run facility and very clean changing area. A nice sense of pride in providing health services to the public.

Positive experience: Decent gym/pool Parking sucks

Positive experience: Only used the soft play area while visiting from up north. Our daughter enjoyed it.

Negative experience: I've used this gym for 2 years and recently I'm really disappointed about the service. Most of the time looks dirty and when they cancel classes for any reason they don't warn you.

Positive experience: Great place. Classes and pool all top rate. Only let down, they need to employ full time cleaners. Not much fun doing pilates on a sticky and crumby floor.

Positive experience: All I ask is that they fix there flickering light outside ;)

Negative experience: Not a fan of the pool and not deep at all in the deep end.

Negative experience: Brought my 8 year old daughter to swimming today for the first time here, the water was unbearably cold so much so that after 10 minutes her lips turned purple and started shivering!!

Fantastic experience: The swimming pool is great, water is not as cold as other venues, but still a bit, decent if you swim.

Fantastic experience: Very nice swim, staff friendly and pleasant visit

Negative experience: They really need to refurbish this place... Firstly all the machines are rusty and old, missing parts and they do nothing about it. Water machine wasn't even working the other day, no sign on it, reception didn't even know about it, couldn't even get water from elsewhere...it's a joke

Fantastic experience: We had a fresh start on Sunday at Venue. Excellent and inviting water for swimming! At Coffe Shop a good Latte and a croissant and a soft play also ok for my daughter! And perfect because free parking all Sunday ! I highly recommend for a fresh start Sunday !

Positive experience: Love coming here for a swim, I hadn't been since the dreaded 19 but have recently restarted my swim membership. The price went up by £3 which no longer includes the health suite (sauna and jacuzzi) at the Borehamwood branch it has actually been taken down. I am still able to use all their branches but the swim membership with use of the health suite went from £22 to £39 The staff at both are lovely though and I'm happy to be a member

Fantastic experience: Booked a massage with Martine she is very good

Positive experience: Ok facilities, nice staff, generally well maintained facilities

Negative experience: Wasn't a bad local gym pre covid but after covid they closed the spa services and refused to open for no legitimate reason, gym wasn't great lay out and weight area is too cramped.

Positive experience: very good swimming pool and attentive life guards such as Lola

Positive experience: Staff are unfriendly, late opening- and never think to put a sign on the window with changed openings- Pool closed due to a Gala- leave us in the cold literally 3degrees- open late then tell us as we walk to go into the Pool area.. changing rooms and cubicles not maintained

Positive experience: Kids enjoy the soft play, it's not huge but okay for an hr or so. Pool is quite cold and changing rooms not the nicest

Positive experience: Parking a little annoying when your already paying to go swimming but the facilities ok not to stuffy as in just lane swimming oh you have children the kids liked the pool good roomy changing rooms warm pool not too cold we like it x

Positive experience: I have been here for many years and always been great fun one thing is if they could bring back the hair dryers they used to have them before

Negative experience: I'm rating the Venue for a birthday pool party. All the staff made it unforgettable and amazing for us. Big thank you to Eric and Chloe, the three receptionists and the Cafe team that looked after us. The food portions were very generous and well presented. I recommend adding coffee and tea for the grownups, they loved it. We will definitely book the whole package again. And in the meantime, we will keep coming to the soft play area which is also fantastic, spacious and very clean. Edit: We had a 2nd pool party in October 2022. The staff (not the same team) totally ruined it. I was contacted after months of complaining and Christine said someone would call me on "Monday", but she did not specifiy the month so it may happen in 2024? Do not book your party there, they don't care.

Negative experience: How can it be that there are no hairdryers for so long? Mainly for this reason I had to cancel my membership. The office lady very rude. Some of the staff too. I do not recommend this place.

Negative experience: I have just returned trying to book swimming for my 5 yo after school...nothing for kids here except the deep pool only and 6.00 - 7.00, no other time the childrens pool is closed. what a joke.

Fantastic experience: Been my gym for about 3 years and loved it thus far ! The team is very friendly and helpful. Communicating promptly where needed and always very cordial. The classes are wonderful and the trainers very caring. Worth it's price, def recommended!

Fantastic experience: Staff are very polite and helpful. A good variety of activities for all ages.

Fantastic experience: Just a quick shout out to Ellie who went out of her way to help cancel a booking I could no longer attend and then refund the money paid (which wasn't expected). Despite working a very long shift, she remembered to call me back that evening and process the refund. Top level customer service!