Wellsprings Leisure Centre offers a wide range of facilities from a large sports hall for almost every court sports you can think of, a 50 piece fitness studio with the very latest Life Fitness equipment and Cardio Theatre, two air conditioned studios, health suite with sauna, steam room and solarium, treatment room, meeting rooms, bar and cafe and six floodlit outdoor tennis courts. The main sports arena is equipped with a retractable seating unit making this area ideal for sporting competitions as well as medium sized events, including concerts or theatrical productions.

But it's not all been smooth sailing for the centre. The contractor building the new £3million community sports centre in north Taunton was sacked following allegations of delays and defects. Workers were ordered off as Taunton Deane Council finally lost patience with the Warner Group, which originally promised to finish the centre by September 2003. The Deane appointed its own team to complete the project at Ladymead Community School, which was completed by Bluestone. Cllr Jefferson Horsley claimed the scheme had been plagued by problems such as a leaking roof which meant the floor could not be laid, health and safety issues and numerous delays.

Now the centre is open and with the professional, kind and informative help of duty manager Leon Troake, two members from the civic society took an impulse evening tour of the centre to see what all the fuss is about.

The overall design of the external structure was nothing to shout home about and is certainly no match to the design of the Tacci-Morris centre. From the front of the building one can see that it is laid out into three basic shapes, a elongated rectangle, a square and a semi-circle, all connected together to make the whole. This segmented appearance is somewhat of an illusion as when one walks around the internal part of the building one does not feel the changes one would expect from such a layout. The external features were badly lit with the exception of the entrance and the light coming from the gym itself (shown right).

From the inside there is a plenty of space and this gives you the feeling that you want to walk around, unlike the tighter, almost claustrophobic space at the Blackbrook Pavilion. The bright colours used throughout do give you a sense freshness and cheerfulness, using primary colours is most places except in the main hall and changing rooms. The reception has a kind of open plan affect and has an unusually low counter. This gives one a perception that accessibility to the staff is more friendlier, almost more equal, but as the centre is designed for those in wheelchairs, we believe that the receptions design intention was for this prime directive in mind. To navigate the building from reception one has three directions to choose from, adjacent is the the cafe or bistro, opposite are the stairs and to the left is a long curved corridor.

The bistro area seems inviting enough and has a quite a good menu. Its glass wall gives plenty of daylight and the customer plenty to look out on to. We also viewed the kitchens to the bistro which were well equipped and well sized. Adjoining the bistro is the conference/meeting rooms, shown here in the picture above as the two yellow doors. 

The conference room can be split into two, hence the two doors. The sound proof sliding partition seemed adequate enough but the room's low ceilings and the fact that it was right next to a bistro did not go in it's favor. You could also say that it lacked a certain amount of privacy. However, it is kitted out for the latest media equipment and wipe boards.

Returning to the bistro after exiting the conference room one can't help but notice the long corridor right of the reception. This corridor leads to the changing rooms that the school and private teams use. Each are equipped with the necessary facilities and has it's own exit at the end of the corridor. However, it was noted that it was strange to have the female changing room at the end of this corridor. This was seen as a slight security risk.