Introduction

Introduction & History

In the late 1960’s the Westway A40 elevated flyover, providing a fast route from White City into Central London, was bulldozed through the heart of North Kensington. Streets were cut in half, 600 houses demolished and over 1,000 local people moved away. A mile long strip of land was left waste beneath the huge concrete stilts of the motorway. Four years of determined local campaigning led to the Trust being set up in 1971 to develop those 23 acres of land for the benefit of the local community.

Westway Sports Centre has been built by the Trust in three phases, the most recent of which was a £10 million expansion in 2001 backed by £8.3 million in capital funding from the National lottery through Sport England.

Our Sports

The Centre has four main sports departments: Climbing, Tennis, Football and Handball Fives (also known as Eton Fives). It also has a small training gym. The three main sports- Tennis, Football and Climbing, have been established over a number of years. They all now offer open programmes for all and youth development programmes leading to regional and national competition and coaching for excellence. All have close links with their national bodies and have received their backing.

The Gym is primarily aimed at local community group users. It is fully accessible for those with disabilities and runs women and men-only sessions and specialist training sessions for youth groups and sports teams.

In addition to our core sports, we also feature Netball & Basketball, Hockey, Street20 Cricket, Horse Riding, swim centre, Crussh Juice Bars, Urban Rock retail shop, and Car Park.

Westway operates a Lawn Tennis Association High Performance Centre (one of only 19 in the country) and has recently been designated a national centre of excellence in youth tennis development. The centre has 12 courts: 8 indoor courts and 4 outdoor clay courts (the only public ones in London).

Westway’s climbing centre is the largest indoor climbing centre in the UK. It has produced five national junior team climbers in recent years and the British Mountaineering Club has recognised it for offering the country’s most comprehensive range of training facilities- as well as being the country’s busiest centre.

Both the FA and Football Foundation back Westway’s football programme. Our coaches follow the FA’s coaching guidelines closely and develop their own skills through FA programmes, as well as those of their junior teams. We host FA coaching training courses on our 6 ‘third generation’ Tigerturf pitches, which include a full size pitch, 3 five-a-side pitches, a six-a-side pitch and and eight-a-side pitch.

We have no membership fees and our ethos is very much on being a community sports centre, where all our community can enjoy sport in a quality environment on a ‘pay & play’ basis. We have something for everyone and offer sport for ‘fun, fitness and well-being’.