Campus development news

Sport, wellbeing and fitness are crucial to the modern student experience, and students who are engaged in activities - including sport - whilst undertaking their studies are proven to be 50% less likely to drop out of their studies than those who aren’t actively engaged. Additionally, access to health and wellbeing services and facilities helps enhance student recruitment and, crucially, student outcomes. 

And it’s not only students that benefit from being active. All our campus facilities are available to staff, too. In addition to our gym facilities, there are dedicated events and activities organised bythe Sussex Sport team to suit the needs of our diverse community of staff. And, in times of great change, sport and fitness can be a great outlet, helping boost both our mental and physical wellbeing. 

In support of this, the University has decided to invest in improving campus fitness facilities with work taking place this summer, ready for the start of the new academic year.  

The investment - across both the Sports Centre (lower campus) and Falmer Sports Complex (upper campus) - will deliver more workout stations in a new, larger gym. In addition, a wellbeing and fitness studio will open in the Arches, next to the Student Centre, increasing the amount of available space for fitness activities on campus, and bringing facilities closer to our student residences, which is something students have asked for in our annual Student Spaces surveys. 

To accommodate the new plans, the four squash courts in the Sports Centre will permanently close from 16 June. These facilities are increasingly underutilised, as the number of people playing the sport has waned, and students’ interest has turned to other activity such as strength and conditioning, cardio, and weights work. The space released by closing the squash courts will be repurposed as a new gym, introducing state of the art Life Fitness equipment, studio and wellbeing space, and a specialist strength and conditioning suite.  

And, because of the way the new gym will be configured, more users can access the gym facilities at any one time. Currently access is limited as the gym is split across several small, disconnected spaces. 

In numbers: 

The improvements will bring:  

148 new stations across the new main gym, Arches and new strength and conditioning area. Currently we have 105 stations in total. 

Capacity – ie the number of users at any one time – willincrease dramatically, from its current limit of 70, which is because of layout rather than available facilities. 

How the work will impact users 

All squash users were notified of the closure of the squash courts in advance, and all other members are also being contacted about the upcoming changes. Information about any disruption during the works will be shared with users as it becomes known.  

More information  

If you have any queries about your Sussex Sport membership or any bookings, please contact our sports team directly at sussexsport@sussex.ac.uk. For any queries about our improved sports spaces, please contact BetterCampus@Sussex.ac.uk and keep a look out on Viva Engage for regular updates.