Councillors supported Cheshire East's plans for a larger gym at Congleton Leisure Centre, but squash players will have to travel to neighbouring towns to book a court.

Cheshire East will be carrying out a refurbishment and extension of Congleton Leisure Centre, on Worrall Street.

This will include the demolition of existing swimming pool and ancillary buildings, newly built pool including reception and changing areas, plus refurbishment of existing sports hall and gym areas.

However, in a submitted planning application, Cheshire East highlighted that the internal layout of the leisure centre's gym had been enlarged and as a result a squash court had been removed.

The vacant area now accommodated the spin studio at ground floor and allowed a new floor to be installed on the first floor which allow the planned gym area to be extended.

The original space utilised for the spin studio at first floor was also taken by the gym expansion.

The submitted application was seeking approval to substitute the approved general arrangement and accept Cheshire East's justification for the loss of the squash facility.

Liaison between Cheshire East Council, Sports England, Squash England and the original planning officer has been ongoing for the past month to agree a solution.

Cheshire East undertook a strategic review of the Congleton redevelopment plan during 2020, seeking to redefine and ensure a suitable investment in the area.

In considering the redesign of Congleton Leisure Centre redevelopment, Everybody Sport and Recreation looked at the supply of squash courts in the borough, regionally and nationally.

They have also looked at the demand for courts at Everybody sites using user data from 2017 to 2019.

In an Everybody Sport and Recreation needs assessment review of squash provision at Congleton Leisure Centre, the report stated: "We are now confident that the modification to the design of the council's redevelopment scheme of Congleton Leisure Centre can be accommodated to re-provide squash provision, whilst taking this opportunity to commit to new initiatives to engage more people into the game, once other sites re-open – targeting a new generation of squash participants."

According to the Cheshire East's 2017 Indoor Built Facilities Strategy: "Cheshire East has a relatively good supply of squash courts with nine sites providing three or more courts.

"This is significantly more than many other parts of the country where squash courts have been lost to fitness conversions or not replaced within the development of a new facility.

"The majority of squash facilities in the area are of good or above average quality."

To quantify this, Cheshire East used the Sport England's Active Places Power website – an industry recognised facility database – to illustrate the latest picture.

The database showed that Cheshire East had a higher ratio of squash courts per person than both the regional and national averages.

Cheshire East currently has one squash court for every 10,671 people. The regional average is 16,170 and the national average is 14,499.

Removing Congleton Leisure Centre's courts would mean that Cheshire East would have one squash court for every 11,641 people, which would still be considerably better than the regional and national averages.

Two of Everybody Sport & Recreation's facilities have received recent investment – Alsager and Macclesfield Leisure Centres – which have included improvements to the squash courts.

Both were already classed as 'above average' according to the Cheshire East Indoor Built Facilities Strategy. Whereas the courts at Congleton Leisure Centre are classed as 'below average'.

Usage at Everybody sites have "declined slightly" over the last few years although it has been stable in the past two years with comparative growth at Alsager with the reduction in courts.

Congleton is one of the "poorer" performing sites with an average of two bookings per court per

weekday.

The closest Everybody facility to Congleton is Alsager Leisure Centre (8.2 miles), but this is Everybody's "busiest" squash facility with an average of five bookings per court per weekday, so "capacity is limited".

The next closest is Macclesfield Leisure Centre (8.4 miles), which "appears to have capacity to cater for the increased demand although the peak periods will be the same so some flexibility would be required to achieve this". Macclesfield averages 2.6 bookings per court per weekday.

Although outside of Cheshire East, the closest facility with squash provision is Biddulph Valley Leisure Centre (4.2 miles), which has multiple squash courts although the capacity of these was "unknown".

Congleton Squash Club previously booked up to two courts every other week (between September and April) on a Thursday evening prior to any form of lockdown being imposed back in March 2020.

However, in a squash needs assessment it was found that Alsager did not have any availability as the squash club booked both courts 7-9pm every Thursday evening.

However, there was a large range of availability on other days/times at Alsager.

But the report stated that Macclesfield could accommodate one or two of the four courts – concurrent with honouring Macclesfield Squash Club fixtures.

Congleton Squash Club were contacted on two occasions in late 2020 and the club confirmed there was 12 members who formed the team.

The club "understood the need for the development" and whilst they were "disappointed" they suggested the team could play at Biddulph where "many of the members" lived.

The application was discussed at Thursday's Congleton Town Council planning meeting.

Cllr Robert Douglas said: "I know that this development does not have everything that everyone wants, but you never can in life.

"There is no doubt that this leisure centre is far superior then the one we have at the moment and having seen the pictures and drawings of the enhancement of the gym, which is going to be a superb facility and the fact Cheshire East already have more squash courts than what is required by Sport England, I think we should sign this straight off to let it go straight through."

However, Cllr Paul Duffy felt the application was very similar to Cheshire East's approach to the town's household waste and recycling centre, citing that were available squash court facilities in Biddulph and Macclesfield.

Cllr Duffy said: "It is a bigger picture thing for me, so I will be voting against this."

Cllr Duncan Amies, who agreed with Cllr Duffy, said: "I think losing the only squash court they have got, that is a sports facility that would no longer exist in Congleton.

"You cannot introduce your children, family or anybody to squash and I think that is a shame because in return we are just getting a bigger gym.

"We have got three or four gyms, there is lots of them. Maybe we should change the name from Congleton Leisure Centre to Congleton Gym.

"This is not a good idea."

Congleton Leisure Centre originally had three squash courts, but after speaking to members of staff, Cllr Douglas was told "there was no need for anything like three squash courts and one was more than adequate".

Cllr Douglas added: "It would be a tragedy if we voted down this proposal for a lightly used squash court and I would be very disappointed if we did that."

Cllr Amies responded: "Once you lose a facility [squash court], its gone, so if Congleton does not have the facility to host squash, it's gone forever.

"It is better to have a facility that is lightly used than no facility at all."

Congleton Town Council welcomed the application after six councillors voted in support, two against and one abstained.