Career move for Bridport Leisure Centre CEO Nick Neale

Nick Neale, former CEO at Bridport Leisure Centre, has made the move to quality management and health and safety specialist Right Directions.

The new position as Quality and Health and Safety Manager follows a successful 16-year stint at Bridport Leisure Centre. The new role will see him covering a wide spectrum of facilities, from leisure centres and holiday parks to golf courses, theatres and town halls, delivering audits across health and safety, Inclusive Fitness Initiative (IFI), pool and environmental issues, as well as helping operators to implement quality systems and energy efficiency protocols.

He said: “The pressures local authorities face to reduce their budgets creates enormous and often unrealistic challenges for leisure operators. How many more facilities will have to shut before something is done? With that in mind I am looking forward to supporting clients across the leisure spectrum, helping them to achieve quality improvements in what they do, which demonstrate and reinforce the impact and value of local authority leisure services.”

Neale started his career as a lifeguard on Brighton beach before spending 15 years at a Kent leisure centre, working his way up from recreation assistant to operations manager, before returning to the West Country where he grew up to take up the position of Bridport Leisure Centre CEO. However, Neale has been working as an associate consultant with Right Directions for the last 15 years in his role as a Lead Quest Assessor for the South West of England, as well as carrying out project work for sport and leisure consultancy, Leisure Futures.

When it comes to sport, Neale labels himself a ‘jack of all trades master of none’, but plays squash and racketball, as well as cycling and sailing. However, his real interest is the promotion of health and wellbeing and encouraging participation. “Creating links with local CCGs is possibly the biggest nut to crack and in Bridport I was lucky enough to work with a fantastic locally-led group called Living Tree, where cancer rehabilitation scheme, Stepping Out, was developed offering exercise and ‘education’,” he said. “On all my travels I have yet to see a scheme that replicates this. I am interested in how sport can bring people from all walks of life together. There’s so much evidence to prove how exercise improves mental and physical wellbeing, it seems ironic there isn’t a greater emphasis on this in Government policy.”
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Editor’s notes:
Right Directions Management provides health and safety and quality management support to the leisure industry, specialising in local authority and trust-managed sites, as well as smaller independent operators. Right Directions, which delivers Quest on behalf of Sport England and ukactive’s Code of Practice, has more than 60 years experience within its field. www.rightdirections.co.uk

For further information contact:
Abigail Harris at Big Fish Public Relations
Tel: 07738 331019
Email: abigail@bigfishpublicrelations.co.uk