Any person taking a walk down Spring Lane will now be greeted by our fantastic and striking new sports centre. The University has taken a huge step forward by constructing the new facility which will benefit students no end. Before the centre was built, the small and rather dated hall in Anselm, along with the fairly dingy St Georges Fitness centre, were the University’s only real sporting facilies within range of the campus, but the new sparkling and modernistic centre really is something to behold.

The welcoming new centre contains one large sports hall (which can easily be separated by a barrier in the middle), a gym facility with accommodating changing rooms and a dance studio on the upstairs floor. There is also a state of the art ‘Performance analysis suite’ that can be utilised by students.

Outside, the striking architecture uses natural materials to give the building real character and a defined style of its own. The large Christ Church Emblem embedded on the side of the building is there to make sure there are no mistakes when trying to locate it for an early morning practical! When you make it inside, which with the not-so-automatic-doors is no simple matter, the building is a really impressive and nice place to be. The gym has that brilliant brand new feeling and the wide range of machines, makes for a really comfortable and enjoyable environment to exercise in. If you are lucky, you may even visit when Live Premier League football matches are being shown on one of the two large screens within the gym, a must when slaving on the treadmill after a heavy night.

The exercise studio upstairs, which has had its false start (the mirrored windows decided to fall down early on in the term), really is a great place to exercise and is used mostly for the wide range of classes the gym provides to suit people of all fitness levels.

The impressive facility is being used as a training base for the 2012 Olympics, boasting specialist equipment to cater for Fencing and Basketball in particular. This fact will help to raise the profile of the University as a place where sportsmen and women are given the opportunity to excel.

The only criticisms that have been circulating on the University grape vine are the lack of parking at the actual centre (given that spring lane sees regular incidents of vandalism on cars). Also, the absence of a swimming pool has seemed to raise some eyebrows. Some may argue that if the University was willing to go to the effort of having the Centre built, why not go the ‘whole hog’ as it were and put a swimming pool in, putting our centre on a par with other gyms in the area.

These, however, do not overshadow what the centre has added to CCCU, and it certainly is a facility that can be developed and utilised by all

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