North Country Leisure, the charity which manages leisure facilities in North and West Northumberland on behalf of Northumberland County Council, is celebrating top scores for its facilities and services after achieving some of the best results in the country and 'excellence' status in recent assessments, carried out by QUEST, the national Quality Scheme for Sport and Leisure.

Quest is a tool for continuous improvement, designed primarily for the management of leisure facilities and leisure development, defining industry standards and good practice to encourage ongoing development and delivery of sport and leisure.

Quest Approval status lasts for two years and is supplemented by an additional Maintenance Visit and Mystery Visit, ensuring that quality of service delivery is maintained and/or continuously improved in line with the Quest standards.

Wentworth Leisure Centre's thorough assessment looked at all areas of the building from how clean the changing rooms are and the friendliness of the staff to the presentation and accessibility of the building and information on offer to customers. The centre was the highest scoring facility in the North East of England for its overall Quest Assessment Score. It was also the highest scorer for Service Development and Review and scored higher than the national average in 82% of the assessment categories, scoring the top grade of "Excellent" in several areas including aspects of health and safety, customer care and programme development.

Willowburn Sports and Leisure Centre in Alnwick had their full assessment back in 2009 and recently underwent their Mystery Visit. The centre achieved the highest score for Facility Operations in the North East and scored the top grade of "Excellent" for one third of the report covering maintenance, cleanliness, accessibility and customer service from reception. The remaining 2 thirds of the report achieved the second highest score.

NCL Sports Development achieved a score of 91% when they underwent their bi-annual quest assessment putting them in the "Excellent" category and the team is now ranked 9th in the whole country for Sports Development.

Prudhoe Waterworld is due their next assessment in summer 2010 and hopes to achieve similar success.

David Thompson, Chairman of North Country Leisure commended managers and staff for their hard work towards continuous improvement of the services on offer. "We are very lucky to have a broad range of leisure activities on offer to us in the areas we operate with warm, modern, friendly leisure centres attracting thousands of visitors each day and outreach work available in rural areas provided by the Sports Development Team."