Freedom Leisure Reviews 

Useless organisation, several times they shut the entire building down because the inept woke manager has a strop. No communication about it expect you to check the website every time you’re going for a workout. Machines always broken, the worst concept 2 rowers in the uk. Everything about the wave littlehampton makes my blood boil

I use the Brighton Withdean sure, it should be a really good gym, there's lots of facilities, tennis courts, gym, squash, outdoor tennis, sauna, and runs fitness and yoga classes - everything is there to make it a great experience. It's clean, staff are helpful and even has a great cafe area.
However, it is sadly totally over subscribed, and quite often some of the gym kit will be out of action for quite some time.
It has 5 decent running machines, with tv screens and global running routes available, but I've lost count of the amount of times a couple of these have been switched off, meaning a long wait to get on a working one. Even at 6 in the morning it can be just too busy.
There's an app to enable to you book onto the classes, but these are always fully booked 2 weeks in advance. You can join a waiting list, but by the time a notification comes through of a cancellation the space is already taken.
I went today, a working Friday at 10am, and couldn't even get into the car park - presumably as it's now used as a park and ride into town.
It's a council facility but it's not cheap, I pay a lot of money each month and it's extremely frustrating when you're not able to use it as you wish.
They really should limit the amount of members if they want to fully utilise the potential here.
My subscription is now cancelled and I'll be going elsewhere.

I use the Hastings and Bexhill on sea centres and was surprised to see the terrible ratings on line .
I have only found the staff both friendly and efficient , I have been going to walking football , badminton and pickleball for over 5 years , whilst my son attends the group swimming lessons .
Well done , keep it up !

A bunch of conmen that are only interested in taking your money we are owed a couple of swimming lessons due to unable to attend due to there fault and it is impossible to arrange these lessons and we are unable to get a refund on them as well the manager supposed to contact us and arrange extra lessons but does not respond to messages or emails and unbale to ring him . Stay well Clear of this company unless desperate to loose money

There is something essentially wrong with the layout of the facilities at the Cirencester Branch of Freedom Leisure.

The showers are separate from the changing rooms. The changing rooms are separate from the lockers, and the sauna is separate from the showers, changing rooms AND the lockers.

The means that... on arriving at the leisure centre, outdoor shoes are not allowed beyond the doors containing all the facilities. Shoes have to be removed and carried to a chosen changing room (or locker), where one has to remove all clothing and put on appropriate gym, pool or sauna attire. Then, because the changing rooms don't have locks, all belongings have to be stored in the very small lockers elsewhere. One has to supply one's own padlock to secure the belongings while using the facilities. It is good practice to shower before the facilities are used but the shower has no accommodation for dry towels to dry oneself after the shower. The sauna is behind a door that is locked until a code is entered.
After leaving the sauna, one has to re-enter the shower while trying to keep the towel dry. On leaving the shower, a vacant changing room has to be found and made available until one's clothes are retrieved from the padlocked locker and carried into the changing room. Having retrieved the clothing, one then needs to dry off and change clothes ready to leave the centre.

It seems to me that it would be more logical that the changing room ought to be part of the shower room and the locker should be accessible from the changing room. Space planning has not been sufficiently considered here.

I have found it very awkward to negotiate the separate components of the changing room etc and I am therefore stopping my membership forthwith.

PS.All this has to be done under public view.

Why is the app offering yearly membership, pay 9 months and get 3 months free when I tried to pay today, not only did the manager not know anything about it and did not understand how the membership scheme works…but I only got 10 months with 2 months free!!
Surely it’s illegal to advertise one price and charge another but if managers have no clue how membership structure works, what is their role??? Will anyone answer this from the company? Probably not!

Been taking my son to the Kettering pool since last March, after months of slow progress we had to switch his teacher to Fred and he thrived with him and quickly progressed from stage 1 to 2 then 3. Since stage 3 and having a new teacher his progress slowed down again namely due to teachers always changing and the layout of the pool changing. Stage 3 is now in the shallow end in a section less than half the size it was, he’s been in this stage almost a year yet things such as water safety message knowledge hasn’t even been assessed. We’ve now pulled him from lessons due to health and safety concerns. As the swimming areas is now smaller but class size the same I witnessed children nearly get kicked in the head on 2 occasions Friday due to overcrowding. When raising concerns the general managers tone was argumentative and hostile, 100% do not recommend we’re now looking elsewhere. Worse bit is there is no complaints section on their website, I wonder why.

I’ve been raising concerns about Tenterden Leisure Centre’s gym for over 8 months and nothing meaningful has changed.

The gym is regularly 22.5–24.5°C, far above recommended workout ranges (18–19°C), making it uncomfortable and potentially unsafe to train.

The air handling/air conditioning system has no clear plan for repair or upgrade, despite repeated promises.

Several pieces of equipment have been broken for months. Even worse, some machines (like the leg extension) are left in use despite missing or damaged parts, which is a health and safety risk.

Interim measures (like replacing large fans with small plastic ones) have made things worse, not better.

Members are paying full price for a service that is well below acceptable standards. Freedom Leisure and Ashford Borough Council urgently need to invest properly in the gym’s air conditioning and enforce thorough safety checks. Until then, the facilities remain substandard and unsafe for serious training.

New pricing at Guildford Lido will give us serious problems. I have been trying to engage with Freedom Leisure on the email address for membership shown on the Guildford Lido website but they have so far just ignored me. It is as if they don't want to admit that the new pricing will cause big problems for some customers. Don't just ignore your customers and blank them when they raise issues. It is unprofessional.

Goldenstones Pool in Yeovil: changing rooms and showers floor and tiles covered in dirt, grime, hairs, mould etc. It's unacceptable to ask people walking on it barefoot.
Hair in the water.
Short opening times at the weekend - there is not much to do at the weekends in Yeovil so closing at 4pm on Saturday is a joke. Often closed earlier due to staff shortages. Inflatable sessions that used to be so popular on Saturdays don't happen any more as well as pool parties organised by Goldenstones. There is no fun anymore. Staff look bored and demotivated, never smile or speak. The floats and balls are the only time families can have a little bit of fun if you don't mind walking on dirty floor to get in and out of the pool. Shame as I believe that swimming should be very much supported and funded by the government.Means health and fitness and happiness.

*Thank you for replying. I was able to swim, although I couldn't book in advance. I am looking forward to seeing my account re-established.
The pool is dirty, and sludge remains beneath each set of steps into the water, it's sandy and shifts about. It was there during the summer under the management of Fusion ("our pool vacuum is broken") and yesterday while staff wiped railings.
***
In Halstead: My ability to use my online booking has disappeared with the advent of Freedom instead of Fusion. During the summer I reported a dirty pool, both directly to several staff over a couple of weeks, and in reviews. I don't know if Freedom are cleaning it up. I don't know if I will arrive there for a swim and find there is access. At the moment it looks like a shambles.

Really enjoyable experience. All staff helpful and supportive. Are you able to install a leg press machine in the gym, That would make the gym super brilliant.
Adela Utley.

They have been changing their timetable on swim times online even tho it said on the website there was swimming today but then it changed i am so mad about if they put something on the website don’t change it this is not the first time it has happened

As someone who visits Brighton several times a year, I usually choose this gym because of its convenient location. In the past, my experiences have generally been positive. Unfortunately, my most recent visit was very disappointing. A front-of-house staff member wrongly accused me of not paying—an issue I quickly resolved by showing proof on my bank app. However, what was most upsetting was the rude, dismissive, and unprofessional manner in which I was spoken to. I would strongly urge management to provide proper customer service training so staff can handle interactions with members in a more respectful and professional way.

Ashbourne.
Im writing this review because no matter how well mannered I am with the staff, I've been met with disdain.
There was an old Karen on reception who was just plain rude to me everytimei turned up, but thankfully, Karen has left the building.
There are a few members of staff that are respectable and decent but, most problems have come from the overly bored young ones who look like they'd rather be anywhere but the lifeguard chair.
I've seen better management and structure at Everyone Active. That's what should be here in Ashbourne, not Freedom.
Everyone Active have better gyms, better machines, bigger spaces to workout in.
Old people are rude in the gym. If my teen is scrolling on his phone on a machine, he's hounded, they dont bother the young white lads scrolling through their phones whilst hogging a machine.
The whole area is racist. The looks I've seen staff and public giving my son is odd. He is a person like you.
Gym needs modernising. Machines break and it takes a while to fix. Roofs leak. Mouldy building. Sometimes the air con isn't on and you feel like you're breathing in other people's sweat or stale breathe. Again, could be the mould.
Richard is the only person I feel safe in being around. He greets everyone and is a lovely chap. You'll find him mostly there in the gym, cleaning machines and giving out advice. He is a wonderful instructor. The other woman is stuck up and gives me the daggers?
Swimming pool is cold. Smells of pee. Normally professional people go round cleaning with industry strength disinfectant. This place could do with that. Instead it's hosed down with water, hence the limescale build on the toilets.
Been whacked over the head by a lifeguard putting a rope in. I was grazed over by the plastic reels on the rope. Lifeguard said, "I've always wanted to do that" why I don't know, done nothing to him.
Gone in to change for a swim and pool lights were off. Staff sat around reception laughing and joking.
Random parties mean you get chucked out if staff dont like you.
People have attacked me in the pool (another karen) because I overtook her, so she purposely punched me.
Lifeguard saw it, said nothing.
The Karen (that punched me) was also a TA in a school. On a separate occasion, Karen was so busy slagging me off to another OAP as i waited to go in. She felt that she could try to publicly humiliate me. A boy she should've been supervising slipped up in front of everyone and fell to the floor. Karen should've been doing her job.
Uncanny the amount of insecure or sexually frustrated Karen's in Ashbourne.
Then one Freedom staff came in the lane. Fair play, shes really fast and good but she kept banging into me when she passed and there was plenty of space, then she nearly kicked my head as she turned over at the end stamping harshly on the wall within an inch of me (as I was waiting for her to pass). Total b!tch for no reason at all. She did the same to my son, Swimming so fast beside him, to push him out the way.
When I challenged her, more staff members stuck up for her and laughed at me. They all thought it was funny being hit by one of their own. Sadistic, miserable, plain, racist, lazy, incompetent people. Ashbourne throughout.
When you inform staff of anything they're not bothered.
Council ran pools were much better.
Everyone Active is better. Even The Gym group is better than run down Ashbourne.

No hand sanitiser in the gymnasium, Tuesday 29/07/2025, was told an order for some had been placed by a manager & it would be available the following day.

Visited Friday 01/08/2025, still no hand sanitiser in the gymnasium.

I was a OAP member a few years when they put up my membership by almost 100%. I left to join Pure Gym which was much better value. I was interested in rejoining Julie Rose as it has a running track but it's very difficult to find the price of membership when you go Ashford Julie Rose website. Why can't they up upfront about prices? Cost of membership is the first thing people want to know when joining a gym.

Mr and Mrs Floyd who operate this business, really have no business in doing so.

Still waiting for a refund

The local authority probably waiting until they go bust

I wonder if it’s called Freedom Leisure as they have made themselves free of any responsibilities? I visited the Swimming Pool in Lymington whereby the lockers don’t lock unless you bring your own padlock! The changing room is grubby and needs a make over. Only 2 showers out of the 4 were “ working “

When I say working I mean a Luke warm dribble like someone has put a watering can over your head! £7:50 for a swim in grubby changing rooms with terrible showers and no lockers is an absolute joke!

Can't get answer on phone and no one pick up when plenty of staff on also swimming pools a bit cold
Not great value for money and need more money spent on it
Wont recommended this