A Decade of Development and Community Impact for Prairie Sports Village
Burnley Leisure and Culture’s Prairie Sports Village is celebrating nearly a decade of serving the community, evolving from a simple sports pavilion to a thriving hub for sports, leisure, and social activities.
Operations Manager, Wes Kellow, who has been with Burnley Leisure and Culture since 2015, has witnessed this transformation firsthand. Having worked in the leisure industry since his teens, he possesses a wealth of experience and details what the site was like prior to being redeveloped and opening in 2015.
“Prairie Sports Village was previously an old changing pavilion that served the grass football pitches; through funding from Burnley Council, the Football Foundation and Sports England, the site was transformed to become the multi-use venue that now attracts up to 100,000 visitors per year.”
Now a multi-purpose facility, the venue offers a plethora of experiences for its customers in the form of 3G football pitches, a golf driving range, the 1955 Kitchen & Bar and conference facilities.
The success of these offerings has led to even further expansion, as the Windermere Suite has now also been revamped, providing a valuable space for businesses and private functions. Wes explains more about the redevelopment:
“In terms of the refit, we’ve heavily invested in the audio and visual equipment to bring it in line and improve it. We’ve put in a self-contained bar area which has everything you could possibly need, from alcoholic drinks to soft drinks. We’ve built in a hot plate, so it allows us to serve hot buffets or Christmas dinners, and obviously a coffee machine as well. But the real idea was to link it in with the rest of the building.”
What also makes Wes proud about the success of the facility is that its impact extends beyond Burnley, serving the wider East Lancashire region, as he goes on to mention; “We’re probably seeing 110,000-120,000 visits a year across all activities on site.”
The venue has become a “Football hub for the region,” Wes says, hosting up to 40 football matches on a single weekend, ranging from five-a-side to 11-a-side adult games. He puts this success down to a combination of factors:
“It’s the quality of the facility, the quality of the team, the staff who work on the shop floor who provide amazing customer service, and all of our fantastic customers who use the facility on a daily basis.”
What is also proving to be a hit amongst the customers is the Toptracer Range system. Toptracer Range was implemented on the driving range in October 2020 and allows participants to track how far they have hit their ball, just like in the professional game. As well as this, it also allows them to compete against their friends in games such as Angry Birds, and Wes is more than happy with how this has gone down:
“It’s made golf fun. It’s made it appealing to a wider audience. Roughly, we’re looking at probably around 8,000 balls a day being hit. On a busy day, we will probably hit in the region of 12,000 to 15,000 balls.”
Looking ahead for the rest of the year, Wes shares exciting news: “The hope is this year, we will be opening a new adventure golf course at Prairie Sports Village, which will be a great addition to the site and for the people of Burnley, Padiham, and East Lancashire.”
We can’t wait to see what the next decade of development looks like. Make sure to come down and be a part of it!
