Zest Leisure

The Hambleton District Council run leisure facilities are amongst the first nationally to undergo the tough new and updated two-day assessment by Sport England’s continuous improvement tool for leisure facilities, Quest.

It contains a number of compulsory modules including Tackling Inequalities and Environmental Management, as well as topics to help the facility make progress in specific areas of its business.  The centre also had a mystery visit.

By achieving an overall rating of excellent in both Quest Plus and for its mystery visit, Northallerton Leisure Centre is the first in the country to be awarded the new accolade of Quest Outstanding.

Portfolio Holder for Leisure, Councillor Paula Thompson, said: “The Quest assessment is much more than a tick-box exercise, it is an ongoing assessment to ensure the excellent standard of our facility is maintained for both staff and customers.

“We are very proud to have been recognised as an outstanding leisure centre by Quest and indeed be the first facility to gain this accolade. It is a great way to demonstrate our achievements and is testament to the real team effort made by everyone.“

Quest’s operations director, Caroline Constantine, said: “Quest Plus is such a demanding process. By meeting Quest’s high standards and achieving an overall accolade of ‘outstanding’, Northallerton Leisure Centre has shown its commitment to providing quality facilities and service to its customers.

“In these tough economic times it is more important than ever that local leisure facilities can demonstrate their value, and the Quest process helps them do just that; enabling facilities and their teams to have the quality of their work both recognised and nationally accredited, as well as showing how they measure up against national standards.”

• Quest is Sport England’s UK quality scheme for sport and leisure. It was first established more than 20 years ago to measure how well a facility is operating and how effective organisations are across a range of topics. The renowned award has evolved over the years to keep pace with the ever-changing sport and leisure industry, and is still the sector’s best-known improvement programme, with its rigorous assessments challenging even the very best leisure centres in the UK.
• For more information, visit https://questaward.org/.

Published: 13th December 2022