The award-winning Moorways Sports Village is nearing one million visits as it prepares to celebrate its first anniversary.
Costing £42 million and delivered on time and budget, the state-of-the-art facility opened its doors to the public on 21 May 2022. By the end of April this year there had been 909,256 visits to the centre and Moorways Stadium next door, which is part of the sports village complex.
The water park, with its leisure pool, two four-storey flumes, Wow Ball, wave rider and water slides, is putting Derby on the map as a regional family visitor destination, with 163,782 visits by the end of April 2023.
Meanwhile the 50-metre main swimming pool has hosted seven swimming galas, including the prestigious East Midlands County Championships. A further 51 events have been held at Moorways Stadium, one of the top 10 stadia of its kind in the country, with the British Masters Track & Field Championships returning in September 2023.
Moorways Sports Village, including Moorways Stadium, is managed by leading leisure operator Everyone Active for Derby City Council.
Highlights from the first year include the Queen’s Baton Relay in July 2022, where the baton was carried down one of the flumes and across the raised floor of the 50-metre pool as part of its journey to the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
One of the first events was the Brownlee Foundation Mini-Triathlon, a schools’ event founded by the Brownlee brothers to give older primary school pupils the chance to swim, cycle and run in a junior version of the triathlon. It returns to Moorways next month.
Awards so far include Construction Project of the Year at the East Midlands Property Dinner in September 2022, where it was also shortlisted for the Design Excellence Award, and Best New Build in Derby Civic Society’s George Larkin Brighter City of Derby Awards, announced in March 2023.
Now Moorways is preparing to celebrate its first anniversary with a family open day on Sunday 21 May.
Since it opened, a core part of the centre’s offer has been about promoting fitness and wellbeing in the community. Health and Fitness membership is already running at around 4,500, a target which wasn’t expected to be reached until three or four years after opening. And at around 2,100, the number of Learn to Swim members has also reached the level expected for year three or four.
Five-times Olympian Mark Foster, who was at the opening of Moorways Sports Village, returns with his one-day swim camp for aspiring club swimmers aged 11-17 on 31 May.
Claire Davenport, Director of Leisure, Culture and Tourism, Derby City Council, said:
Moorways Sports Village is a resounding success for the city, providing state-of-the-art leisure facilities for our communities. We wanted to invest in the most up-to-date facilities for our city while keeping it affordable for our communities and the level of participation makes it clear we’re achieving that.
Simon Morgan, Everyone Active’s Contract Manager, said:
It has been a fantastic first year for Moorways and surpassing one million visits will be a real milestone. We are looking forward to continuing to get the local community active over the next year and beyond and providing facilities which are inclusive for all. We hope as many people as possible will come down to join in the fun on our family open day on Sunday, May 21 and enjoy the amazing facilities at the centre.