David Lloyd Speke — Local services in Liverpool

If I could give zero stars, I would...

Courts On only one occasion, in an entire year, has a booked badminton court been set up for us. We began by going to reception to request this be done but soon learned that this meant waiting for up to 20min for a member/members of staff to saunter around and do this which hugely ate into our booking, so we began doing this ourselves. This involved going into the equipment cupboard, which was never locked or staffed, and getting the equipment ourselves. Yes, hugely labour intensive and inconvenient but at least we would get a game of badminton. Despite reporting this countless times and reporting formally using the app, neither received a response nor has it ever been addressed.

Gender discrimination Of all of the barbells in the free weight area, only one is a 15Kg barbell (a women’s IWF spec Olympic bar [reduced weight and grip girth]). I have reported formally on the app several times over the past 12months... There is still only 1x15Kg barbell in the gym.

Family classes All family fitness classes have ben cancelled and moved to battlebox and blaze- both high intensity classes that require specialist skills. Very few of the staff appear knowledgeable or confident enough to support developing children in this exercise format. Blaze also requires specialist equipment that you must purchase on top of membership prices; another barrier to participation! Current class offers for families have become limited and not representative of the membership.

Cleanliness Cleanliness is a real concern, the cleanliness of the steam room in particular. Where two surfaces meet (eg. seat and wall or wall and floor), there is often a layer of what I can only describe as gunge. Reported to staff, no action taken.

Non-members We have overheard numerous discussions in both the gym and spa areas of people ‘being let in by reception staff’. This is frankly insulting, especially considering extortionate membership fees.

Minors I can’t remember the last time I saw a member of gym staff on the gym floor. Not only is this a serious concern for member safety but has also resulted in minors frequently, and unsafely, using the free weights area including parading topless and taking photographs of themselves, taking up a lot of space and generally being distracting/intimidating to other members. On one occasion several youths were spotting one of their friends, who was attempting to bench press a completely inappropriate/unsafe weight. This could cause serious injury, and if dropped on the youths neck potentially a fatality. Every time we have witnessed this we have reported this to gym and/or café staff who, in fairness, have asked the youths to move. Yet, this happens time and time again.

Intimidation Sadly, this is a not uncommon experience in David Lloyd Speke, with groups of teenage boys in particular often playing in spaces they have not booked and that are not staffed/supervised (eg. astroturf pitch, basketball/football area. In the women’s changing room I had my shower door pushed open by some teenagers. I spoke with their mother about this at the time and also reported this to the reception staff on that evening and never heard from the club about the incident.

Other observations include; poor food/drink in the cafe, some lovely but mostly unenthusiastic/apathetic staff, terrible smell in the disabled/family changing areas and issues with the pool (often closed, if open then varying temperature).

We are a professional couple who have attended for ~1year to try and encourage an active/healthy family life. We have tried to make this arrangement work, arguably for too long. In truth, our experiences echo that of other recent reviews and we can access friendlier and cleaner facilities at the local council pools. We terminated our memberships today and given the complete inaction from David Lloyd Speke on those issues raised with them formally and in confidence, we felt no other option but to make this public in the hope that they improve things for their...

Really disappointed the way my autistic daughter been treated. When I signed up contract with the gym I informed them my daughter is autistic (at the time 4 years old currently 6 years old) I been reassured it will be not a problem and I can book any classes for her. I would like to say that even tho she is autistic she is really lovely child don’t get aggressive or hit other children only sometimes she gets meltdown she’s also very athletic loves riding scooter or do other activities. One day the lady who was in charge of all the classes informed me Maya will not be allowed to book anymore classes the reason she told me was that they need 1 extra staff just for Maya because she’s very active and “don’t understand English” when I told her that Maya is autistic and don’t listen to most commands in any language she just replied she basically can’t allow Maya to come for any more classes. I pay for the gym big monthly payment for whole family membership and to change their approach to autistic child is absolutely out of order it is not her fault the way she is and as I mentioned earlier she never showed signs of aggression towards teachers or other children she was always excited to attend classes. I spoke to manager and asked if they want me to pay extra for 1 more teacher for Maya (same as I do with my 1 year old baby classes) manager said he will have a word with the lady in charge of classes later on he called me and told me he can’t do anything about it and I don’t even have that option to pay for extra teacher/assistant.After few months thinking about the situation I went and asked if they can give me any discount on my family contract as they don’t allow Maya for any classes they replied to me they unfortunately can not offer any discounts because child is autistic. The lady in charge of classes changed since then I had a word with her again about the situation she promised to me she will speak to the previous lady in charge about what is the reason Maya is not allowed but she never got in...

I am a member of this club since January I have a family membership which is paid every month I have 2 kids ages 2 and 3 and they go to the crèche most mornings for 2 hours. At first everything was fine then to be informed by a lady working in the crèche that I could only send my kids to the crèche for so many hours a week. I then went to reception as when I got my tour I was informed that my kids could go everyday to the crèche so long as I was paying which I was. Last week I had an incident where I collected my two year old that is wearing nappies and her nappy was not changed(bare in mind she is in there for 2 hours) so maybe I just thought that she did get changed but drank a lot of juice and her nappy was full again. The next day when sending the kids to the crèche I had 2 different branded nappies at home so I decided I would put a different brand of nappy on her than the ones that were in her bag. Collected my child the second day and the same thing again,I could not understand what was going on so I went to the reception and asked to speak to a manager the manager was not around so I left my name and a contact number to be informed he would call me straight away when he was free, waited all day got no phone call. The third day which was today I picked my child up from crèche and her clothes were drowned wet the lady working informed me that she had spilled juice so I decided to check her nappy infront of the lady working and again it was the same nappy that I had put on her that morning. I then said it to the lady was there a problem that her nappy wasn’t changed and she replied”it was dry while she was in here” which was obviously lies if her nappy was full and also her clothes were wet when I collected her. Shocking that David llyod would let this happen after reporting it twice! As of writing this I still have heard nothing from a memeber of David llyod about this current situation. This is so...