Horizon Leisure Centre is offering free swimming and sports sessions for everyone throughout the summer holidays

A LEISURE facility is doing its bit to help families over the school holidays.

Both Havant and Waterlooville Leisure Centres are offering free swimming and sports sessions for families and individuals to encourage more people to stay fit and healthy over the summer.

Horizon’s Free and Active sessions will run from Monday, from July 25 until August 31 and will include both swimming and sports sessions.

The swimming sessions will include free entry to Fun Family Float sessions, as well as public swimming sessions, running across different times at each centre.

People will be able to visit the Havant site on Mondays and Thursdays from 2:30pm until 3:30pm to play badminton, table tennis and basketball for free.

The idea behind the initiative was to get people, who are less active, moving their bodies and taking part in physical activity – something the Horizon Leisure Trust, which runs both centres, is very passionate about.

Chief executive Mike Lyons said: ‘We’re really keen to get people moving, particularly those who are less active. Keeping local families healthy is hugely important to us. With the cost-of-living crisis becoming increasingly challenging for everyone, we wanted to make healthy living even more accessible for everyone than we already are doing so.

‘Also, we know how hard it is for families to keep the kids entertained over the summer holidays while keeping activities affordable, so we’re hopeful that this will ease some of that financial stress on parents.’

In addition to this, Horizon has introduced bootcamps in local parks, with the first session free, to allow people in the community who don’t want to visit a leisure centre to access fitness and exercise.

Mike added: ‘We want people to be able to access sports and fitness, sometimes can be daunting coming to a leisure facility for the first time, so we wanted to bring fitness to the local community. These sessions are aimed at beginners and will hopefully bring some fun to the parks.’

People wishing to attend the free sessions must book through Horizon’s mobile app from Friday, July 22, which can be downloaded on iOS or Android, or at www.horizonlc.com

The bootcamps are a joint initiative with Havant Borough Council, which is in partnership with Horizon Leisure Centres.