Newton Abbot Leisure Centre and Broadmeadow Sports Centre, Teignmouth, are among the country's top leisure facilities says independent accreditation scheme Quest.

Quest is a nationally recognised UK Quality Scheme for Sport and Leisure, endorsed and supported by Sport England.

It encourages managers to focus on areas such as service planning, staff management, customer relations and operational service.

The award certifies a sports facility as offering 'best value, continuous improvement, excellence and quality'.

Both the Teignbridge leisure centres scored impressively in the assessment, which included a Quest assessor spending one day at each location, interviewing staff on all aspects of the day to day running of the centre.

Newton Abbot Leisure Centre improved its previous Quest score from 79 per cent to 83 per cent, stepping up to the category of Highly Commended, while Broadmeadow Sports Centre gained Commended status with 70 per cent, a notable improvement of seven per cent on its previous score.

FULL STORY IN OUR ONLINE EDITION