Winter has a habit of killing momentum. The pitch is waterlogged, the outdoor track is closed, and suddenly the fitness routine you’ve built over six months is on hold because of a bit of drizzle. That’s where the UK’s indoor multi-sport complexes earn their keep. I’ve spent the last couple of years visiting several of these facilities, and the quality on offer, particularly at the elite-level centres that have opened to the public, genuinely surprised me. You don’t need to be a professional athlete to walk through the door of some of the country’s best-equipped venues.
This guide runs through the top options across England, Scotland and Wales: what sports you can actually book, rough costs, who each venue suits best, and what to watch out for before you turn up expecting everything to be free-access.
Sheffield English Institute of Sport
The English Institute of Sport (EIS) in Sheffield is the closest thing the UK has to a full Olympic campus that the public can access. Sitting next to Ponds Forge, it covers over 6,000 square metres and has been home to GB athletes across cycling, boxing, fencing and gymnastics for years. Since 2022 the centre has progressively opened more of its capacity to community bookings, and in 2026 that access has expanded further.
You can book the sprint track, the strength and conditioning suite (genuinely well-stocked, not a basic gym), and the multi-sport hall for badminton, basketball or volleyball. Court hire runs from around £18 to £35 per hour depending on time slot and sport. The S&C facilities are available on a membership or day-pass basis, with day access typically around £12. If you’re serious about structured winter training rather than casual fitness, this is the one to check first. The Sheffield City Trust manages community bookings, their online portal has live availability.
Manchester National Squash Centre
Attached to the National Cycling Centre in Manchester’s SportCity complex, the National Squash Centre has ten glass-backed courts and hosted the 2022 British Nationals. It’s one of the finest squash venues in Europe, full stop. Court hire for members of the facility costs around £9 per court per half-hour session; pay-and-play rates are closer to £14. They also run improvers’ sessions and junior coaching programmes that are genuinely worth the money if you’re picking up the sport in your thirties like I was.
The adjacent National Cycling Centre velodrome, if you’re curious about getting on the boards, runs public taster sessions. I’d actually point you to our guide to UK velodromes for beginners for the full picture on what to expect your first time on a track. SportCity as a whole is one of the most concentrated patches of high-performance sport infrastructure in the country.
Crystal Palace National Sports Centre, London
Crystal Palace NSC has been through a lengthy regeneration discussion, it’s no secret the building needs serious investment, but as of 2026 it remains open and offering an impressive range of sports. The 50-metre pool, athletics track, badminton and basketball halls, and the strength gym are all accessible via pay-and-play or membership. Day gym access is around £8 for residents of the London Borough of Bromley and roughly £12 for non-residents.
The athletics track in particular is underused by the public. If you want to do structured interval work through winter without battling wind and darkness, booking a lane session at Crystal Palace is a solid choice. The facility is managed by Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL), who also run a string of other community sport centres across London and beyond.
Sportspace Hemel Hempstead
This one tends to fly under the radar, but Sportspace in Hemel Hempstead packs a remarkable amount into one site. Eight badminton courts, three squash courts, a large climbing wall, a gymnastics centre, and a gym with proper strength equipment. It’s the kind of place that suits a family or a group training together because someone will always find their preferred activity.
Badminton court hire sits at around £10 per hour off-peak. The climbing wall has its own membership structure, or you can pay per session at roughly £9 for adults including equipment hire. For groups wanting variety without multiple venue memberships, Sportspace is well-run and genuinely accessible.
Oriam: Scotland’s national performance centre, Edinburgh
Oriam on the Heriot-Watt University campus in Edinburgh is Scotland’s flagship performance centre. It’s the home of the Scottish national football and rugby teams for indoor training, and hosts Hibs and Hearts for pre-season and bad-weather sessions. But it also runs substantial community and public access programmes that cover five-a-side football, badminton, squash, athletics and fitness facilities.
Community gym membership starts at around £35 per month. Pitch hire for five-a-side is around £55 per hour (book with a group and that splits to very reasonable rates). The quality of the playing surfaces, particularly the indoor 3G pitches, is genuinely professional grade. If you’re in the Edinburgh area and haven’t visited, you’re missing out on one of the best-kept secrets in Scottish sport.
Cardiff International Sports Campus
Wales’s answer to a performance hub, the Cardiff International Sports Campus (CISC) sits alongside Cardiff City Stadium and includes the Welsh Institute of Sport. Indoor facilities cover tennis, gymnastics, boxing, and a full strength and conditioning suite used by Welsh national squads. Public access is available on a session or monthly basis, with gym day passes at around £10.
The tennis courts are particularly worth booking in winter, six indoor courts available to the public when national programme bookings allow. According to BBC Sport Wales, CISC has been central to Wales’s grassroots development push, and the public-facing programming reflects that.
How venues market their public sessions
One thing I’ve noticed across all these complexes is that they’ve become sharper about promoting their community-facing schedules. Several now run social media campaigns and digital display advertising around seasonal upticks, the post-Christmas January rush being the obvious one. Sports venue marketing has genuinely professionalised; even a venue like Oriam runs targeted digital campaigns across its catchment area. If you work in or follow sports marketing, you might find the Banner Ads landscape around sports venues increasingly interesting as these facilities compete for community bookings year-round.
What to think about before booking
Peak hours at all these venues are predictably 6pm to 9pm on weekdays and Saturday mornings. Book at least a week ahead for those slots. Most centres operate a 24 or 48-hour cancellation policy, and some charge the full session fee for late cancellations.
If you’re training as part of a structured programme, it’s worth checking whether the venue has a sports scientist or physiotherapist on site. The EIS Sheffield and Oriam both do; many others don’t during public access hours. For anyone managing load or recovering from injury, that matters. I’d pair a winter training block at one of these venues with something like the GPS-based tracking approaches covered in our look at how rugby clubs manage player workload, even recreational athletes benefit from understanding their training load across a week.
A final word on nutrition around indoor training sessions: indoor facilities tend to run warmer than outdoor environments, and sweat rates are often higher than people expect. Eating and hydrating around your sessions matters more than most recreational players account for. Our piece on nutrition timing mistakes UK athletes make is worth a read before you commit to a regular winter block.
These venues exist. They’re better than most people assume. Get booked in.
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