The Parks

The Parks leisure centre is located on Howdon Road in North Shields (not far from the Royal Quays shopping centre). This centre is owned by the local authority so it offers a pay as you go scheme but also annual ‘Contours’ membership which allows you access to any of the Council leisure centres in the area, it also offers discounts to people owning an ‘EASE’ card. The Parks is quite large, housing a crèche, vast indoor bowling green area, several rooms upstairs and down for classes (such as pilates, step aerobics, spinning, boxercise etc), sunbeds, health suite (sauna, steam room, showers etc) badminton/​basketball courts, indoor 5 a side football, outdoor football pitches, out door bowling greens and a gymnasium. Some of the equipment in the gym is looking a little worse for wear these days but other than that I always find the place to be well maintained and clean. Parties and coorporate events can be held here and it has a reasonable sized car park and an overflow car park for the busy periods. The nearest metro station is either Percy Main or Meadowell.