North Herts Leisure Centre — Attraction in North Hertfordshire

The 80s called - they want their Leisure Centre back.

Let's start with the positives. There is a nice clean cafe that sells a good range including healthy options. There is also one of the largest baby pools I have seen, new, light and warm. But that's where it unfortunately ends.

The facilities are set up to take large groups of babies yet for some unknown reason there are only 4 parent and child parking spaces. Come in people apply a little joined up thinking.

There is no family changing facility so it really isn't the kind of place for a father to take his daughter as it is an old school open male changing room with four four seat changing benches in the middle and a single baby change table in the corner of the open plan male changing room.

The baby pool looks great, but is almost exclusively reserved for paid for lessons every day between 9:30am and 6:30pm every day, with the exception of Sunday afternoon. This only became apparent after paying for entry, where we were not informed despite carrying a 6month old in our arms, getting changed in separate changing rooms, showering ready to swim and walking through the main pool to the entrance to the baby pool. This is where a printed timetable was posted on the wall. Come on people what is the point of a baby pool open to the public mainly outside the hours of 9:30-6:30, what parents want to take babies swimming at those times? We tried the main pool but it was very busy and really not warm enough for a baby.

The main pool can't have seen a refit for a very, very, long time. There are holes in the tiles and grouting crudely filled with sealant, mats covering damaged drains and some strange wood and rope contraption covering the water outflow from the water slide.

There is nowhere suitable for lane swimming so any fitness activity is difficult especially on a Saturday when it is full of children with giant floats, and footballs. The staff also didn't seem bothered by the people bombing from the side of the pool right in front of the no diving signs or the dads who where throwing their children in the air.

All in all this is a place to drop off your independent child and come back to get them later, or spend extra money on baby swimming lessons or in the cafe. They have lost sight of the regular...

While the pool is ok, and life guards are attentive and seem to care about customers( hence 2 stars). The public changing rooms are disgusting. There is dirt all over the floor. There bits of broken metal and broken plastic. My child stood on some plastic and cut her toe, it was only minor (antiseptic wipe and a plaster) but when you are asking people to go barefoot it needs to be clean and free of debris.

Complained at reception, to be told its cleaned overnight and before opening bit they'll get someone to clean it.

A lifeguard ended up running the rubber squeegee round the floor. But the cleaner wasn't in there until we were leaving an hour later. And they were just pushing the dirty mop round the floor, not even rinsing it in between, and they did the bathroom floor first before the changing area 🤢.

I had put my towel on the floor to clean my feet/stand on to keep feet dry, after picking it up floor looked a bit cleaner, couldn't see any debris on the floor(towel straight in the wash when got home) cleaner came through to clean with mop, and there were black bits (lint, fluff, God knows what) left behind.

The cleaner was telling people off for either wearing or putting outdoor shoes on the floor, fair play. But (and a big but) they were wearing outdoor shoes themselves, in the form of boots. They didn't even have any plastic booties/overshoes on. So just came across as a hypocrite.

The only saving grace was the lifeguards/poolside staff, one overheard me talking about the state of the changing rooms to someone I was with and they instantly engaged and got a colleague to go and check it out.

On top of this parking is an absolute nightmare, people were double parking and causing obstructions. And the football wasn't even on.

They've spent millions on a makeover for the gym, but can't keep the public changing rooms sufficiently clean.

Also the ceiling above the pool looks grim with multiple loose tiles/ squares. Surprised some haven't come down yet. The new stuff in the toddler pool looks...

As a father of a little girl it was very disconcerting to be in an open male changing room with grown men walking around in front of children absolutely naked. I can't believe in this day and age grown men still think it's acceptable to behave in this way. On top of that there are only 2 cubicles to change in and 1 doesn't have a door. I put my daughter in the closed cubicle to be confronted by a 10 year old boy with no parents who despite my efforts to calm him, insisted on kicking the door and shouting at my daughter to get out because he wanted the changing room. He then kicked me and tried to climb under the gap in-between the cubicles whilst my daughter was changing. I finally managed to get him to leave her to change in peace, only for him to fly at her from across the changing room after she left the cubicle stating "now I will punch her in the face!" At that point I had to raise my voice and tell this boy to get his parents immediately (which never happened) there were 10-15 other witnesses in the changing room at the time including 2 members of staff which I spoke to, after explaining the situation one of your employees told me that they had no idea the door was missing from the cubicle and this was the first they had heard of it. (how a door vanishes from a changing room without anyone knowing about it is beyond me) I write all that to say that I think the standards of your facilities are far below par and you need to take serious action to prevent any such issues in the future. For my 8 y/o daughter to be subjected to nudity and violence in your centre is completely...