Woodley Sports Centre re-opened its doors on Monday 10 September as lifeLEISURE Stockport Sports Village following an £8m development and refurbishment, creating many new local jobs through centre operator, lifeLEISURE.

Stockport Sports Village houses state-of-the-art fitness, football and tennis facilities. The new Optima 3G floodlit five, seven, nine and 11-a-side football pitches are the same installed at Barcelona FC's Joan Gamper training facility.

Greave's Tennis Club have relocated to the tennis facility and the centre also incorporates a 27,000sq ft fitness, leisure and educational facility incorporating a 100 station state-of-the-art gym, studios, classrooms and conference facilities for users including Stockport College, Stockport County Ladies FC, local junior clubs and the local community.

The fitness facility is set to become a football centre of excellence for the north west, and will be home to Stockport Sports Football Club - providing them with an elite training facility.

As with all Life Leisure facilities, Stockport Sports Village will provide accessible, inclusive and affordable fitness for all. Members will be able to take advantage of Life Leisure memberships which offer the best value for money locally. This includes use of the very latest and innovative fitness equipment available from Life Fitness, global leader in fitness equipment manufacturing.

Woodley Sports Centre was established in 2005 when three local businessmen purchased the old steel works' sports centre and social club and set about their vision of creating a unique fully integrated sports and educational facility for the local and wider community.

Michael Clark, Director of Woodley Sports said: "We are really excited about the reopening of the Stockport Sports Village. My two co-directors and I have been working very hard over the past seven years on a labour of love to deliver our dream facility which we believe to be up there with the biggest and best in the North West of England.

"We are now ready to open the doors and share the benefits of our state of the art facilities with our partners and the local community."

Malcolm McPhail, MD at lifeLEISURE, said: "We were absolutely delighted when appointed as managing agents for the new facility in Woodley. We have been working on the project for a few years now to ensure that the centre would reopen as a premium football and fitness facility.

"We are looking forward to welcoming people from all around Stockport, as the facility now offers something for everyone, including recreational and competitive football, leagues, state of the art gym and the latest aerobics classes and kids classes. The centre will also be an additional campus for Stockport College for their sports courses and offers conference and banqueting facilities."

He added. "Following a most successful home Olympics we hope to engage many more people in the local area to get active now that these great new facilities are on their doorstep."