Islington's leisure centres have seen a significant surge in visitor numbers, with a 22% increase reported in the past year. This substantial rise is primarily attributed to the successful reopening of the Sobell Leisure Centre and its newly introduced facilities.

An artist's impression of a new indoor play area featuring trampolines, climbing structures, and inflatable obstacles.
Active Play area rendering

The Sobell Centre, which reopened in May 2025 following a Thames Water flood, now boasts the popular Active Multi Zone and Active Play areas. The Active Multi Zone offers a variety of attractions including a jump zone, inflatable zone, strike zone, interactive sports pitch, and a zip zone, alongside a new area for birthday parties and conferencing. The centre's sports hall has also been reinstated with courts for badminton, basketball, volleyball, netball, football, and handball. Since their respective openings, the Active Multi-Zone has welcomed nearly 90,000 visits, and Active Play has seen over 108,000 visits. The Sobell Centre has also been a popular venue for approximately 1,600 birthday parties in the last year.

A young child in swimming gear, wearing a green swim cap and blue goggles, is in a swimming pool.
Child in swimming pool

This significant boost in attendance was a key topic during a meeting of the Environment, Climate and Transport Scrutiny Committee on April 13, 2026. The committee received an update on the council's leisure services, detailing various initiatives aimed at increasing accessibility and usage. These include dedicated toddler sessions for children aged 18 months to five years, and SEND (Special Educational Needs) sessions designed for reduced capacity and low noise. Free swimming programmes for families, children, and over-60s have also seen strong participation, with over 3,000 children attending.

A group of young people celebrate winning a trophy on a sports field.
Young people celebrating on a sports field

The increased visitor numbers, particularly from commercially driven activities like children's parties at the Sobell Centre, are proving financially beneficial. The income generated contributes to the overall contract surplus, which is shared with the council. This partnership ensures that the financial gains benefit both the service provider and the local authority.

Beyond overall visitor numbers, the success of accessibility and usage initiatives is being measured through various metrics. For the HealthWise programme, success is indicated by referral numbers (nearly 1,000), completion rates (75%), and the achievement of exercise targets (93% achieving 30+ minutes of moderate activity, 59% achieving 150+ minutes). The football development partnership has seen a 17% increase in attendees, with 58% female participation. The GLL Sports Foundation supported 54 athletes with a value of £38,000, and the Active Girls programme recorded 2,408 attendances from 434 individual girls. A new program, the Boys Empowerment Club, was launched in January 2026, and its success metrics are still being compiled.

This update was presented as part of the Public reports pack for the 13th April 2026 Environment, Climate and Transport Scrutiny Committee meeting Public reports pack 13th-Apr-2026 19.30 Environment Climate and Transport Scrutiny Committee. Further details can be found in the Leisure Scrutiny presentation 2026.