Windrush Leisure Centre

Positive experience: Witney's leisure centre is the oldest and most tired looking in the Oxfordshire area, it needs some serious money spending on it, the pool especially, every Better centre I've been to in the local area is miles nicer and for a town of Witney's size (and growing) it's a real shame.

Fantastic experience: Good facilities helpful staff

Positive experience: Well equipped leisure centre. Cleanliness is an issue though. Toilets need a lot of work to get to an acceptable standard.

Fantastic experience: Great leasure centre, I'm a carer in a children's home, and I take one of the children I care for swimming lessons, he as learning issues and Windrush provided SEN swimming lessons. Also, the very nice café is run by Yellow submarine charity.

Fantastic experience: Excellent sports centre

Fantastic experience: Clean and well looked after, friendly helpful staff.

Fantastic experience: Good gym with high end equipment. I will definitely recommend

Fantastic experience: I last visited this place for a swim back in 1973. Nothing much has changed, friendly staff, clean and they have everything you need to stay fit and healthy.

Fantastic experience: Love it here my happy place

Positive experience: We use this leisure centre for swimming lessons mainly. When we started, about 2 years ago, the changing rooms etc, as other reviews have mentioned, were very unclean. That has changed now, thanks to Jolene, the absolutely brilliant new cleaner. She is also so friendly! We love the swimming lessons, and the teacher who seems to be supervising the other teachers is great. I recently had a query and she took the time to listen, find out more, then gave really helpful feedback to both of us. The yellow submarine cafe is lovely and the cakes are yummy. I agree with the comments about the toilets and drains, they do need replacing - keeping my fingers crossed that happens soon.

Positive experience: Not the best gym I’ve ever used in the world, but does the job for £50 a month if you can use a swimming pool and other facilities as well definitely worth checking out friendly staff.

Fantastic experience: A great place to work those tired limbs into something fantastic !! Very clean gym with modern equipment, polite and happy staff, a swimming pool full of water (that's not cold) and spacious changing rooms and a cafe that sells coffee and CAKE !! .... Overall, very much worth the membership each month although more importantly It's the way I now feel

Negative experience: I find it amusing that staff members are leaving 5 stars but no comments. I used to work here and recognise the staff names. During my time there I was asked to leave positive reviews also. Dishonest getting staff to do that. Just do your jobs properly and customers will be happy to leave positive feedback!! In my opinion the 1/2 star reviews are the honest and accurate ones. It’s a shame to see the decline just by reviews alone. The stories I could tell….

Positive experience: I swim for fitness 6 mornings a week. With my monthly subscription it's an enjoyable, healthy and economic way to keep fit. Great facility for the people of Witney.

Negative experience: Changing rooms a bit grubby. The website timetable is always incorrect, I have complained about this before and nothings been done. I see the timings for the swimming on the website then I get the centre to be told there's no free swim today. Its mind numbingly frustrating as they don't care to make the timetable on the website accurate. Lazy. Also the staff member clearly needs extra support and supervision and should not be on the desk alone.

Positive experience: Only there for 35 minutes but enjoyed the class. The only problem I can find,is it needs a GOOD clean

Positive experience: Pretty average leisure centre. Friendly staff. A bit cold around the swimming areas.

Fantastic experience: I have been a guest here for cardiac rehabilitation over the last 10 weeks. The staff have been very helpful and the facilities are excellent from what I have seen.

Negative experience: They dont even put the heating on upstairs, feels like you working out in a fridge Expensive, cold and floors are dirty Avoid if you can

Negative experience: Very disappointed upon arrival no staff on the reception desk, had to wait nearly 10 minutes for someone to come out. Wanted to take my daughter swimming of an early evening to find the pool closed to the public as swimming lessons going on until after 8pm. Swimming lessons are obviously the money spinner

Negative experience: Small children's pool was freezing, we only managed 20 mins before my husband was freezing and so was our 9 month old, who was in a wetsuit

Fantastic experience: Using the Leisure Centre for rehabilitation, so not using the full facilities. The Cardio area has a good selection of up to date equipment.

Negative experience: Small pool is far too cold for children who can’t swim, apparently 28 degrees is warm enough for babies?!? Avoid this place. When discussed with the staff they couldn’t care less. They are simply keeping the temp low to ensure they protect their profits. GLL (parent company) did £311 million in sales last year btw!

Positive experience: Nice sports centre reasonably priced.

Positive experience: We swimming pool and it is all right

Positive experience: Decent but slightly aging centre

Fantastic experience: Clean and we equipped, friendly helpful staff

Positive experience: Good leisure centre

Fantastic experience: Nice quiet session suitable for older people like me.

Negative experience: Terrible experience. Been twice, never again. Only rating this place deserves is 0 stars. I came here to play Badminton on Saturday afternoon. The first time we came, waited 10 minutes in the reception, nobody at all at reception. A few other people were waiting. I had enough and I just went and knocked at the office and this guy waddles out looking surprised, I tell him people are waiting, he then finally actually helps people at reception. I buy rackets and shuttles for £6.50. And I’m given broken pieces of garbage which made playing impossible and I asked to swap and he just had other broken ones. The next time we come, still no one at reception. People were sitting there complaining about no one being at reception. This time I just walk straight through, I brought my own rackets and brand new shuttles that I paid good money for. Turns out they have this stupid net at the top of the badminton court which just eats up your shuttle. Absolutely pointless. If you hit a shuttle even slightly high, your shuttles just gone. I lost 3 BRAND NEW shuttles just like that in only 1 hour. There were also like 50 shuttles up there so we were not the only ones who had this. I wanted to complain about this to the guy at reception but of course he was not there. Too busy being on his phone in the office! Terrible place. Worst leisure centre I’ve been to ever. And I’ve been to many bad ones.

Negative experience: The pool facilities are still very disappointing, especially for a pool that is supposed to be the home of Witney District swimming club! The premises are dirty, the toilets are dirty and so outdated. So the real issue is Hygiene I am afraid. No real shower facilities with privacy. For over £7 entry fee, and with the prices members are paying (steep increase over the years), efforts should have been made a long time ago.

Negative experience: Was really disappointed with the swimming facilities. Dirty floors, only one toilet which was occupied by a lady changing back into her clothes, no changing cubicles (thus having to use the toilet). Big balls of hair on the shower floor which super put me off ever swimming here again. Gross.

Negative experience: Everywhere you look at is dirty, they have started now switch the lights off and Aircon as well. Even if you beg staff to switch the Aircon on they never do it, then as result you left the gym feeling sick and the staff laugh on you. It's not a friendly environment at all. I just started, but for sure I am leaving in the same month.

Negative experience: Today when I went swimming it was not a nice experience. The smell of sewage and cold water spoilt the pleasure of swimming.

Negative experience: Kids pool is okay when it's open or warmed. Main pool is cold. Facilities are dated and grimey. Cold showers and many broken lockers, dirty toilets etc. No longer run soft play although still advertised. No longer offer pool parties with inflatables although still advertised. Can't contact the centre directly as the customer service number is national and they never know anything or give inaccurate information. Just always such a disappointment.

Negative experience: Witney is absolutely disgusting. My son has had 2 sickness bugs on Saturday evenings after lessons. No proof it comes from your centers but they truly are filthy so it wouldn't surprise me. As soon as I can find alternative lessons I will be removing my 3 children from lessons. The toilets next to the pool smell of putrid urine, it is stomach turning and I will not let my children use them. The floors are always dirty and some of the changing rooms also smell of urine so I can only presume that some chose to let there children urinate in there as its cleaner than the toilets. Disgusting

Negative experience: getting worse and worse! Very rude and unprofessional staff. No wonder lots of people are cancelling their memberships- they just don't give a damn anymore, the place is minging, they seem to forget that covid has not gone away- and what's with the toilet roll as wipes, for the £40 per month you pay- go to the pure gym at half the price! ???!!

Negative experience: The pool was filthy. Green on the bottom, green on the sides and mould on the edge of the pool. The changing rooms and toilets were also very dirty. It is a shame that they can not keep the place clean

Positive experience: It's okay hence 3 stars, could do with better cleaning in the showers and changing rooms. I saw shower gel/shampoo splodges in the cubicle for over a week, even after mentioning it to staff.

Fantastic experience: Really friendly and helpful staff in the café who make a very decent coffee plus thank to the Manager Josh who showed me around the Centre. Impressed.

Negative experience: The softplay was the most depressing place I’ve ever been to. Dark room, barely any light, old tatty toys and it smells utterly disgusting. Chips all over the floor and old birthday banners falling down. Absolutely horrible

Negative experience: Won't be swimming here again. We booked a session online for "swim for all" at 9:00am Sunday morning, so me and my son could have a play about in the pool and when we turned up. They had swimming lessons and lanes so that you had to swim. My son isn't a very confident swimmer so we ended up being in the pool for 5 minutes. We payed £15.00 to do this!!!!

Negative experience: This is regarding the Carterton gum, don't know why it's showing for the Witney gym which is great! . . . If you can deal with the uncaring attitude of all then staff, from management all the way down, not a bad place to work out

Negative experience: Staff never answer the phones.

Negative experience: Gym is good, even with the covid measures. But the speakers blaring out bad radio music remixes is so loud. I have my earphones in and on full volume I can still barely hear my rock music.

Negative experience: The gym like 2 bedroom flat no enough equipments also so expensive for no reasons

Fantastic experience: Myself and my son started swimming here this week and very impressed with the social distancing layout and how easy it is to navigate the one way system. Changing area was cleaned as soon as we vacated it at the end of our swim. Throughout our allocated swimming times I noticed the chairs and benches around the pool being cleaned by staff on a regular basis. Overall a very pleasant experience.

Negative experience: Membership Scam - Membership includes the gym. (average community gym, at times very unclean) however when trying to book a place online, they charge you £8 for 50mins. You cannot book back to back slots. No more than 10mins on one piece of equipment. You cannot contact customer service via phone as it is a pre recorded message that drones on and only refers you to the online system via the app. Send as many emails as you wish, they dont reply.

Negative experience: Reasonable facility though don’t expect working showers, cycle bikes in gym never work and air conditioning off despite being boiling hot. More recently cancelled a class 1 hour 55 mins before it started due to my train cancellation and although my place was filled they charged me a £3 fine on top of my £55 a month membership. Emailed a complaint but never responded to. They don’t pick up the phone (tried 8 times now). Can’t book any more classes online so need to go to centre to pay the totally unfair fine. Ridiculous system.

Fantastic experience: Great clean facility, friendly staff and trainers, very good selection of equipment. Not sure why some negative reviews here, I've been using the facility for 4 years, and over that time it has improved from good to really good. Witney is lucky to have this health centre/facility in town. I encourage the staff keep up the great work.

Negative experience: The cost to go and use the small pool is nearly 5 pounds, for that i would expect for you to replace some of the floats or somthing as they are abit mouldy and have chunks ripped all out of them. Also dont think the cleaniness of the changing rooms is very good.

Negative experience: Rip off merchants with unhelpful staff and poorly maintained facilities.

Negative experience: Absolutely terrible experience! Came back here after a year and squash courts looks like shooting place! It's discussing I paid and I stuck in the court top it's unbelievable!

Fantastic experience: Best gym in the local area, clean and friendly staff. My wife particularly likes the new GHD straighteners they have just installed in the swimming pool changing rooms. Definitely recommend

Fantastic experience: Fantastic swimming lessons and teachers, my son loves his lesson. The centre is very clean and well maintained

Fantastic experience: Child does swim school, lessons have always been good value and child has developed well and enjoyed their class. Cleanliness in changing rooms has improved dramatically in recent weeks, appears to be regular cleaning now in place during lessons, which could be helped further by parents wearing blue shoes.

Negative experience: Terrible. 'no booking required' online, arrive 5 minutes after 9am and they're 'sold out'.

Positive experience: We just use it for swimming and swimming lessons. It's a nice set-up but for one thing, which I hope will be addressed! Smelly toilets! The kids they employ for general duties do the cleaning and have not been trained how to clean a toilet or given the proper equipment - so the cleaning is perfunctory and a strong smell of urine pervades the mixed changing area. I observed one young girl doing the cleaning without a bucket of hot water or even a pair of rubber gloves. Just to point out - I am a retired male doctor and am not obsessional in general. However, my grand-daughter now chooses her cubicle as far from the loos as possible because of the pong!

Fantastic experience: Really good gym and classes

Negative experience: Reception is terrible. Understaffed. The staff they have seem to have little knowledge of their products and very unhelpful. Queue is always long. Telephone is never answered. Rude and self absorbed.

Negative experience: facilities are old, becoming not quite fit for purpose and semi frequently are unavailable through mechanical fault, centre staff are incredibly hard to contact and in general the whole outfit is unsuitable for the number of current users. Given the number of new houses being built in the surrounding area surely the place is rapidly becoming obsolete.

Fantastic experience: amazing staff who actually saved my partners life on the 28th July after him having a major heart attack its good to kn ow all the staff are CPR trained THANK YOU

Fantastic experience: Friendly and helpful staff, lovely modern gym and pool sessions

Fantastic experience: Gym staff very helpful & are helping me to achieve my goals. Highly recommend.

Negative experience: They never help and when they do it usually takes 30-40mins and the health and safety is disgusting! So many people have problems with the gym and yet they never care..

Positive experience: There is always someone on the reception which there never used to be. The fast booking in machines seem to always work and give out the paper tickets which they regulary didnt. The whole area seems to be tidier and cleaner. The paper towl dispensers in the spinning studio are always full now. The spinning bikes are mostly in need of some tlc, but as they are due to be replaced this month that should be sorted.In the mens changing rooms there are more available lockers with keys now. Small changes but they all help to make a noticable difference. That just leaves the unreliable headphone/ microphone set up for the Instructor in the spinning studio, why isnt it some sort of bluetooth system which does away with the batteries which are normally flat or in short supply. Then there is the parking, more classes are a good thing but lack of parking at busy times is not. I am looking forward to the extention of the Carterton leisure centre as I live close to it and I can walk there and with more classes here I will not have a parking problem.

Fantastic experience: Great gym and a wide range of classes. Highly recommend using the facilities!

Fantastic experience: It's amazing

Fantastic experience: Always greeted well and my requests dealt with quickly and efficiently.

Fantastic experience: High standard of cleanliness and customer services. Helpful staff.

Negative experience: Generally unhelpful staff and poor range and quality of equipment. Doesn't feel like good value for money, but unfortunately little other option in the local area.

Fantastic experience: Többféle sportolási lehetőség, jó parkolás és Witney vízilabda csapata is ott edz :)

Negative experience: Don’t try calling as they very rarely pick up the phone and try to blame you! Awful

Negative experience: Took my two year old, the children’s pool was very cold. Disappointing as it’s separate to the adults pool!

Negative experience: Stood waiting at the desk with a 5 year old standing in line for over 15 minutes while 3 members of staff didn't even look up and acknowledge the ever growing queue of disgruntled customers. Finally when I was seen, no apology for the wait and our swimming time was greatly limited as the session ended not long after we finally got in after all the waiting. Kids pool was quite dirty and very cold. Cafe didn't seem to offer any hot food and a very limited range of cold snacks. Upsides were clean changing rooms and free hair dryers and also a decent variety of floats and foams for the kids to use.

Fantastic experience: Great gym facilities and pool, many stations on offer. Friendly, approachable and knowledgeable staff. Been a member for over a year and would recommend

Fantastic experience: Great gym with wide range of equipment and plenty of classes too!

Fantastic experience: 120 station gym, 6 lane 25m pool and teaching pool, 60+ fitness class programme including 30 bike spin studio, 4 court sports hall, 3 squash courts, soft play area and café.

Fantastic experience: Very clean and friendly

Fantastic experience: Great gym, best in the area. Would recommend

Fantastic experience: Amazing. My kids love the swimming pool they all ways want to go swimming there

Fantastic experience: Great range of facilities and activities.

Fantastic experience: Friendly staff and the centre feels welcoming throughout, caters for a wide variety of activities

Positive experience: The gym is pretty good, it has all the equipment you need. Sometimes it can be a bit busy, depending on what time of day you go, but usually I find it easy to access any equipment I want to use. The staff are helpful when you need them, and the swimming facilities are perfectly adequate.

Negative experience: I thought having a leisure centre right on my doorstep was great, however the few times I've been here the reception staff have been really miserable and blunt. I've even been blanked. The website is awful - it makes no sense, takes forever to find what you're looking for and lists a different timetable to the one that runs at the centre (which I found out about after turning up for an evening swim and being told it's actually less time than what it states on the website so there was only 15 minutes left). When enquiring about swimming timetables at reception, they apparently don't have one available, even though as you walk through the corridor towards the swimming pool changing rooms there's one on the wall. The timetable they give you for everything else is really confusing too. General information is lacking. I'm pretty disappointed to say the least.

Fantastic experience: I called in to have a look around and wasn't expecting much after reading the terrible reviews. It was in the day time and the centre was clean and welcoming. The staff were friendly on reception and very efficient. The member of staff that showed me around, after I completed a visitors card, was also friendly and showed me exactly what I wanted to see answering any questions I had.

Negative experience: Don't bother no price's in the recption area to tell you how much it is, no swimming time table , paid £11.00 not even a hour had gone was asked to leave as they had a class for the pool, told take our swimming masks off as they are not allowed, no signs to point out what is not allowed, they said it was to see our faces, why do you need to see our faces. As i the recption they do snorkeling class's and was told they do( don't they use masks in snorkeling, although the life guard said they don't do snorkeling class's).

Negative experience: I turned up and paid for a kids play session with my daughter but the hall had not been set up with the usual play mats and toys. Fair enough, it is the summer holidays and quiet, maybe the guy at reception did not realise the session was cancelled so I went back to get my money. Instead of a quick apology and returning the ONE POUND I had paid, he insisted the session was on and that it was being set up. I waited, went back to look in the hall, nothing. He still insisted it was on and being set up. I said, don't worry, give me my pound back and I will go to which he replies "I am not authorised to return your money". More waiting and insistence that the session was still on until finally the Duty Manager (who had been on the phone for 20 minutes) indicates that the other guy can return the money. Did it require some secret passcode etc? No, he pressed a button and the till popped open. Is it a one-off? God no, as the other reviews here suggest, it is an ongoing problem.

Negative experience: Despite being assured last year that the pickleball 'no volley line' would be marked in the 'New Year'....which one sic?...we pickleballers have been using the 'badminton' courts for over two years and today we had 20 players. You take the money but don't provide proper facilities! I have been asked to play on your 'OPEN DAY' 21 May. My answer, "Only if you are providing properly marked courts".

Negative experience: Appalling customer service - trying to speak to the centre to see if the inflatable has been repaired for near on 3 hours this morning. Each and every time the number(s) gets switched to answerphone. So complacent. I'm regularly disappointed by Better's staff - far from 'better'...

Negative experience: Very rude staff

Negative experience: shower always cold, parking is rubbish and now they have wardens to give you tickets,

Negative experience: Absolutely the worst ever website I have ever seen!

Negative experience: If you walt free sessions just walk in, lots do, the rest of us just subsidise them.

Negative experience: Have been visiting on a weekly basis for a swim for the past couple of months. Despite a large wall display on the back wall that advertising pride in good customer service, a warm welcome coupled with a friendly smile sadly this is not always the case. One young male receptionist in particular is sullen and borderline rude and is definitely not the smiley, happy chappy as promised. It would seem he did not attend the training when customer service was on the agenda. Initially I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and thought that maybe he was having a bad day, but I was over generous. On return visits I have been met with the same lack of enthusiasm to treat the paying customer with any level of a warm welcome. On another note the changing village is in much need of attention. The smell of stale urine hits you before you get anywhere near the cubicles and it's strength increases as you reach the toilets. The showers are cold as is the general atmosphere. The fitness element of every visit is in the speed at which you dry and reapply your clothing before hypothermia sets in. I understand there have been recent issues with the heating, however over the past ten years, that I have used the centre, I have never known it be any different. Granted it is a council run facility but at the cost of £8 pound per swim fir myself and small child it is not exactly cheap

Positive experience: Whilst it may not be the most swish/smart place to be, the staff seem friendly and helpful, the gym equipment is OK and the guys in the cafe upstairs are lovely - they do delicious food and it's a nice atmosphere - and you can watch the swimmers ......... well, swimming really! It is a Council run gym so you cannot expect it to be particularly plush or 'pretty' - it serves a purpose, i.e. provides gym equipment, pool and instructors - OK, so the ladies changing room isn't particularly nice (always boiling hot with the fan going ten to the dozen) and not completely clean but hey, you get what you pay for in this life!! It is the only decent sized leisure centre in the town BUT you can also use the gym in Carterton and Eynsham (that's tiny). There are other health-clubs close-by but it depends on what you're looking for. If you just want to get fit, then give this a go but don't expect all the bells and whistles of private health clubs or spas! Talking of which, there is no sauna, jacuzzi or steam room here!! Parking can be problematic but there is a car park over the road (meant for the shops) and you can park there for FREE for up to 3 hours!!

Negative experience: Dreadfully mismanaged but the only large leisure center in the area so they get away with it. If you complain then you get a very long response explaining why YOU'RE wrong. Awful use of taxpayers money.

Positive experience: The staff are helpful but the reception desk can be overloaded at times..... Parking is often a problem, but this is not the fault of the management. At busy times a quick survey of the cars and the drivers getting in and out of them suggests that many young women use the Centre as a convenient place to leave their 4x4s to save them the bother of finding a place in one of the nearby [free] public car parks..... Complaints about booking by phone may well have been justifiable, but you can do it on line now.