STAR LETTER: If only we had as many gyms as fast food outlets (From St Helens Star)

STAR LETTER: If only we had as many gyms as fast food outlets

1:03pm Thursday 9th July 2009

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HAVING recently attempted to join a gym or to regularly start swimming as a good form of exercise, I have frankly been appalled with the lack of Council-run facilities available within the St Helens area.

In the past I have used Queens Park Leisure Centre for both gym and swimming facilities and have found these facilities to be excellent but unfortunately these have now been closed for the very long time period of 13 months.

This leaves only three Council run sports centres, one of which, the YMCA states on its website "St Helens YMCA is not currently operating a fitness gym".

With these two facilities out of action, the only other two options are Parr Baths and Sutton High Sports College. Parr Baths has proved fruitless, with the swimming pool only available for public use between the hours of 12 till 1pm and after 6pm.

As Parr Baths is over 4 miles from my home and as like many other people, I have to rely on public transport, this makes travelling to Parr Baths for one hour’s use (between 12 and 1) almost worthless and arriving there after 6pm very difficult to achieve with the reduced level of public transport at these times.

For this reason too, using Sutton High Sports College as a fitness resource is made difficult, as again, the pool is only made available to the public between the hours of 12 and 1pm and in the evening time, as are all other sports sessions such as netball and badminton.

With all four Council owned fitness centres in St Helens providing lacklustre facilities, the only options left are to join a privately owned gym which proves too expensive for the common man or to take to running through the streets, which is an unsafe and undesirable option for many people.

All that remains to be said is that with Council provided facilities such as these if is not surprising that St Helens and the Northwest has one of the highest obesity levels of the country and considering the lack of resources provided it almost seems as though St Helens Council wish to raise this level further.

If only there were the same abundance of gyms and fitness facilities as there are fast food outlets, surely the health of the town would be greatly improved.

Overall I am thoroughly disgusted and disappointed with the choice of fitness facilities in this town and feel let down and disheartened by the Council’s approach to fitness.

Catherine Lester (Miss) details received

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