Half a million pound boost for sports facilities

Ed Braney, Alison Odell, Mike Shore-Nye, Tim Westlake and Chris Renshaw

The University of Manchester is investing more than half a million pounds into new sport and fitness facilities for students.

One of the main winners is the Armitage Site, the University’s indoor and outdoor sports complex based in Fallowfield.

A bigger fitness suite coupled with two new 3G long pile five-a-side football pitches has led to 500 new gym members and a five-fold increase in people using its outdoor facilities.

The Armitage Site is a key sports venue at the University and only last year played host to the World Lacrosse Championships.

Director of Sport at The University of Manchester Alison Odell says: “If we want to be one of the top universities in the world, and that’s what we aspire to be, we’ve got to have a student experience that merits that.

“There’s a group of students we don’t manage to engage in sport across the University and these facilities offer another level of campus sport. We want to grab all those people who exercise only a little bit and push them to do a bit more.”

Alison adds: “We hope to follow these improvements at the Armitage Site with updated tennis and squash courts and new outdoor multi-use areas in coming years.”

And the investment has been given the seal of approval by one American student. Madeleine Schuck a sports scholar at Manchester says: “The facilities here mirror the quality facilities I am used to in the United States.”

Director of Student Experience at The University of Manchester Tim Westlake says: “Offering varied sporting opportunities and fitness and well being classes for students is fundamental to helping them succeed academically and we need to continually invest in facilities to keep them world class.”