Silksworth Sports Complex & Ski Slope — Attraction in Sunderland

Brilliant ski slope built on the former site of Silksworth colliery. There is also a range of sports facilities including six 3G football pitches. The ski slope offers block bookings of five sessions with a qualified instructor. You may also make singular bookings if you want to. On request, when you book for a second session you can ask to be with the same instructor. Adjacent to the ski slope there is a small coffee stand that has outdoor seating in front of the main slope. In your booking you also get ski boots and ski hire. When with an instructor for your first few lessons you will be on the nursery slope, which has a rope lift, and when ready you will move to the main slope, which has a button lift. From the top of the main ski slope you can sometimes see views of Newcastle. Please note that this facility also has a ski club operating on the main slope so please be aware of the time that it runs. There is also ‘snow tubing’ near the nursery slope so please be mindful when skiing or snowboarding. I would really recommend John as your ski instructor at Silksworth he will guide you through how skis work and how many turns to make to slow down on the slope. John will also give you feedback at the end and during your session. I will be returning...

A tip. Nightly, it turns into a convention for car enthusiasts with their MacDonalds comestibles, where every piece of wrapper and carton discarded from their cars in which they convene. The wind then carries the rubbish into the flora and fauna before the daily clean up. Once fed, the complex becomes a drag strip or a scrambling track, with the evident tyre marks ploughed into the grass. Notwithstanding this, dog walkers with dogs off lead, allow their pets to defecate where they are, whether on the football pitches, or on the walk ways, without either picking up the excrement, or proceeding to throw the offending bag into the bushes. Popular Saturdays see parking wardens keen to fine those who indiscremenantly park outside allocated spaces, but never ever any dog wardens or litter wardens to try to remedy the more offensive acts. Other than football and ski activities, or the weekly park run, there is no visible alternative sport I've seen for a Sports Complex. Occasional anglers apart (Angling is a hobby not a sport), the running track is allegedly not to IAAA standards (I heard it's 20cm short of the official length) so is used for training by the odd person. What a...

Could do with money spent on upkeep & update tired old worn areas, especialy the entrance at the lakeside end , the old rusted metal arched signage looks like it belings to a closed / abandoned area with no welcome or explanation apart from a stick man image on a pair of skis . The car park on/at main entrabce is awful and not safe, the narrow 1 way narrow road nends around cars parked on both sides with sometimes inches to spare and then you have to stop start to allow pedestrians to also squeeze past as theres no clear or safe pedestrian paths especialy on the road out of the carpark. Slopes themselves are ok for the age and fact they havent changed much in decades, when you compare it to other snowsporta centres for example the upkept & constantly modernised Midlothian snowsports centre then iam afraid Silksworths snowsports centre cuts a tired neglected sad looking centre which is a shame as we are lucky to have it in the first place but unfortunately The City of Sunderland council obviously continues to realise this. The best thing about the place is the staff & trainers that keep the...