Active Essex - Places & Spaces Fund

Active Essex Funded Making Fitness Accessible CIC £6,500, which was match funded alongside Mr William Tweddell's £5,000 kind donation for The Angel Centre developments.

The background to our asset development project was making sure The Angel Centre - North Essex's accessible exercise facility is genuinely accessible for the people it exists to serve.

As a community interest company, we support people with disabilities and health conditions to be physically active in a safe, inclusive environment. However, as we gained our new premises it became clear that parts of the building and gym space were creating barriers for some participants, parents/carers, and visitors, particularly anyone with mobility challenges, wheelchair users, or those who need a more supportive environment to move around confidently.

We therefore launched this development project to remove those barriers and make The Angel Centre a space where everyone can access sessions with dignity and independence. The focus was on practical, high-impact improvements to the building, including:

- Installing ramps and level access to improve access and movement to the space

- Making wider accessibility improvements to support safer entry, exit, and navigation

- Upgrading flooring to create a safer, more suitable surface for inclusive activity sessions

These changes were essential to ensure The Angel Centre could operate as an accessible community facility, not just in principle, but in day-to-day reality. Now, more people can take part in physical activity opportunities without the building itself limiting what’s possible.

In Review

The aspects of our funded project that have worked particularly well are the access improvements and the new flooring, both in terms of practical impact and the overall feel of The Angel Centre.

Access improvements have made a clear difference to how people enter and move around the building. The space is now more accessible for wheelchair users, people with mobility challenges, and anyone who benefits from safer, easier routes in and out. What’s been a really positive additional outcome is that the improvements haven’t just increased accessibility, they’ve also improved the look and feel of the entrance/access area. It’s aesthetically very pleasing, and we’re getting noticeably more light coming into the building now, which makes the whole space feel more welcoming and uplifting from the moment people arrive.

The new flooring has also worked extremely well. Feedback from members has been consistently positive, people have told us they feel safer and more confident moving around during sessions. It’s also transformed the atmosphere of the space from the old warehouse feel, which has now gone, and the centre now feels warmer, more professional, and much more like the inclusive community facility we want it to be.

Overall, the funded works have delivered both the functional improvements we needed and a significant boost to the environment and experience for everyone using The Angel Centre.

Arrange a visit to our Therapy Gym or Sensory Gym at The Angel Centre - www.theangelcentre.org