The Hive leisure centre in Ely could be a model for other community centres across the region

The Hive leisure centre in Ely celebrated six months since opening with an event showing the benefits of a community focused venue.

More than 20 leaders from private and public organisations attended the leisure centre development showcase.

The day looked at the benefits the community-focused centre has brought to the area, in making sport and physical activity a more accessible option for people in the community.

Richard Smith, operations director at Mace Group, said: “This was a really interesting project for Mace to work on as project managers, and we think it offers a great model for the development of community leisure facilities, which could be rolled out in other communities.

“The Hive is an exciting multi-sport facility that really does offer something for the whole community, and we hope this new centre and its state of the art facilities will continue to encourage more people to lead healthier and more active lifestyles.

“As we lead up to the 2022 Commonwealth Games in the West Midlands, we are really starting to carve out excellence is sports and leisure facilities and we look forward to continuing to use our expertise to support this legacy for our region.”

The £13.5million centre opened to the public in May 2018 and includes an eight-lane 25m swimming pool, a learner pool with moveable floor, a 120-machine health club and gym, two activity studios, a four-court sports hall and full size 3G pitch.

The centre was funded by East Cambridgeshire District Council, with the help of a £1.5million grant from Sports England.

The centre was designed by Space and Place Architects and built by contractor Pellikaan, with Mace acting as project manager.

In their role as project manager, Mace were required to work closely with East Cambridgeshire District Council to ensure the new leisure centre provided quality services whilst maintaining a balanced budget and ensuring it was completed within the project time scales.

Now fully operational, The Hive is managed by GLL on behalf of East Cambridgeshire District Council.

The new leisure facility is part of a wider development on the Ely Leisure Village site, with a new cinema and retail park currently being built.

The site was known to be of archaeological significance and project managers, Mace, helped in carrying out a detailed survey dig of the site, finding numerous artefacts and remains.