Decades ago you had to pay 50p to get through Beau Sejour’s turnstiles if you were just going there to hang out – and that ethos of being a safe space for youngsters to socialise could be part of the leisure centre’s future again.
A recently published review of Beau Sejour warned the site needs either another major refurbishment or a total rebuild.
While £10m was spent redeveloping the leisure centre ahead of the 2003 Island Games, the plant room and other essential infrastructure date back to when it first opened in 1976.
Co-produced by Education, Sport and Culture (ESC) and ‘subject matter experts’ FMG Sport & Leisure Consultancy, the review warned that money is going to have to be spent bringing the building up to modern-day standards.
ESC President Deputy Paul Montague said people were already giving him ideas about what else could change at the leisure centre.
While there has been no commitment to spending any money at all on the site yet, it is recognised that leisure, wellbeing, and community focused services and facilities are as important as sport, said Deputy Montague.
He said that wide-ranging focus could see the leisure centre reimagined once again, and this time it could return to the days of being a safe space for young people to hang out, while the needs of older people are also met, along with the ongoing demand for sport facilities.
Deputy Montague said many people have contacted him or spoken to him since the review was published, sharing their memories of Beau Sejour and ideas for its future.
“I have had so many members of the public talking about their memories of Beau Sejour. Some of them coming up with some plans, some quite fanciful, some quite realistic, and actually a lot of ones that have already been talked about and presented.
“I think that one thing that comes out of this report that we could be doing better is about access and somewhere for young people to go.
“I spent years teaching teenagers who said ‘Guernsey’s boring there’s nothing to do’. I’d list things that I thought they could do, and they’d say, ‘those are all sports’.
“What we need is somewhere where people feel they belong.
“It’s not about ‘I’m going there at 7 o’clock to play a basketball match’, it’s ‘I’m going to hang out’, and there are facilities that are safe, they’re social, and there are other activities.
“I think that thing that we do need, that youth-oriented hub is very important, but also, crucially, with our ageing demographic, is that we need it to be accessible for older members of the community.”
Deputy Montague said creating facilities for young people in particular would also help with efforts to limit screen time for children and teenagers.
“I see groups of youngsters around the island, particularly in the summer and they do hang around, especially around the castle and on the sea wall, you see kids jumping in by the ice cream van, and you do see big groups of kids hanging around,” he said.
“Though sometimes that causes problems, I think we’ve got such a big job to do to push back against screen time, and we’re just trying to do whatever we can to help that culture shift away.”
Deputy Montague said his ESC committee is very aware that their mandate covers education, sport, and culture, and that anything they can do to decrease screen time while increasing engagement with physical and social activities is a good thing for everyone.
“When we look at everything to do with mental health, and also physical health, it’s not just screen time, it’s the longer you’re on the screen, the less active you are and I think anything that gets students away from their screens to a public social place where they can mix with other people is good,” he explained.
“We’re doing an awful lot of work in schools and on the concept of belonging as part of our attendance scheme based on research across the world which is demonstrating that if you want to improve attendance what you’ve got to do is make those young people feel like they get up in the morning and want to go to school because they belong there, and I’m feeling that there is the facility to do something similar in terms of our social and community spaces.
“We have those spaces for older adults and younger adults to go to but I think we’re kind of shortchanging our young people in terms of what we provide them, so we’re not going to close our eyes to that.”
