£2M boost for South leisure facilities
Published Wednesday 28 January 2026
Leisure facilities in South Oxfordshire will receive a £2M boost over the coming year, with a number of improvements planned for council owned leisure centres.
South Oxfordshire District Council is funding these projects with developer contributions (S106 and CIL), their Capital budget and contributions from Oxfordshire County Council with £1,958,000 allocated to Abbey Sports Centre, Didcot Wave and Thame Leisure Centre.
Abbey Sports Centre in Berinsfield is to get a new sports hall floor, making it a much nicer location for users to play a range of sports and keep fit.
Didcot Wave and Thame Leisure Centre’s will be getting improved dry changing facilities. These include full refurbishments of the male and females changing areas and accessible toilets. Energy saving devices such as LED lighting and water saving devices will be installed. This work will help to enhance the user experience for all customers and open up areas of the centre so that they are more easily available for everyone to use and enjoy.
The council is also reviewing the feasibility options for Didcot Wave to have a new learner pool, further updates on this project will be announced in due course.
Cllr Pieter-Paul Barker Cabinet member for Finance and Property Assets at South Oxfordshire District Council said: “We know how popular our leisure centres are across the district and we want to make sure that residents continue to have the best experience when using them.
“Many councils are having to take the hard decision to cut back on leisure provision and in some cases close their centres all together. I’m proud that we are able to use our developer contributions and Capital funding to allow us to invest in these vital community assets, to keep the facilities at a high standard and maintain them for future generations to use.”
These projects follow on from others that have taken place at the centres in recent years including new studios at Didcot Wave (2025), Park Sports Centre, Abbey Sports Centre and Thame Leisure Centre all had state of the art gym equipment upgrades (2025), 150-solar panels were installed at Thame Leisure Centre (2025) and it’s estimated the panels will produce 69,000 kWh of renewable electricity for the centre along with new LED lighting, an artificial turf pitch at Abbey Sports Centre for 5-aside football (2024), Henley had new sauna and steam room facilities fitted (2023) and at Park Sports Centre in Wheatley work is underway to install sustainable energy efficiency measures at the site which could make savings on energy bills and carbon emissions.
South Oxfordshire District Council started 2026 by announcing that they had secured an extended contract with their leisure providers GLL, who run the Better Leisure Centres across the district. They will work alongside GLL to provide these new and refurbished facilities over the next year.
