Jubilee Leisure Park at Cleveleys Seafront

Jubilee Leisure Park is the name for the leisure area on Cleveleys seafront where the cinema is. The buildings were constructed at the same time as the sea defence scheme at Cleveleys, and remodelling of the seafront.

Do you remember? The old beach huts that once stood where the former Pizza Hut building is now? With the car park behind them along with a patch of rough grass to the right of Jubilee Gardens.

What’s at Jubilee Leisure Park?

There are two large units (now the Vue Cinema and JD Gym), the smaller, former Pizza Hut unit which is now vacant, and the Jubilee pub. All were built in 2006.

Vue Cinema

The eight screen Vue Cinema opened on 25 August 2006. It replaced the pitch and putt and a large car park.

JD Gyms

JD Gyms opened in the right hand unit in 2019, after a £1.5m fit-out. Previously the ice rink and children’s play centre, it’s good to see the unit having a new lease of life.

There’s more below about this buildings previous incarnations.

Pizza Hut – to Padel Court

The small, right hand unit opened as a Pizza Hut restaurant and takeaway when Jubilee Leisure Park first opened in 2006.

Although it never looked busy it stayed open and traded as Pizza Hut until the covid pandemic of 2020/21. During the second long lockdown of January to April 2021, company bosses announced that it would not be reopening again.

It had a brief reprieve in September 2021 when it opened as the independently run RJ’s Sports Bar.

However that didn’t last very long either and it’s been empty since, awaiting a new tenant. As of 2024 the building looks increasingly shabby and in a poor state of repair. But by mid August 2024 there is some good news because a planning application has been submitted for a completely new use.

Proposed Padel Court

Padel, or padel tennis, is a racket sport of Mexican origin. It’s usually played in doubles on an enclosed court slightly smaller than a doubles tennis court. It shares the same scoring system as tennis but the rules, strokes, and technique are different. The balls are similar but with a little less pressure and the height of the ball being served must be at or below the waist level. There’s two main differences between padel and tennis:

• the court has walls and the balls can be played off them in a similar way as in the game of squash,
• solid, stringless bats are used.

Applicant Alliance Real Estate is seeking permission to use the former Pizza Hut and part of the car park behind for “erection of padel courts and use of the vacant restaurant as cafe. With associated areas of hardstanding, means of enclosure, lighting and associated infrastructure.”

The existing Pizza Hut building will be smartened up and used as a cafe, open to all members of the public. It will also accommodate a booking desk and possibly a small area of padel retail. Directly to the rear, three covered-over padel courts will be built with mesh walls, on what’s now the car park. This means they can be played during all weathers but there’s visibility into and through the space.

You can comment on the Wyre Council website and show your support for this application at this link

Watch this space!

Jubilee Pub

The pub at the left hand side of the cinema opened in xx as the Harvester but closed at the end of 2018. In autumn 2019 it reopened as a ‘Fayre Table’ pub as the Jubilee Park and of course then there was a pandemic…

Owned by Hurstwood Holdings it opened again in September 2021 as the Jubilee Cleveleys. Unfortunately it was closed again by March 2022 under a cloud of unpaid staff and bills. A different operator tried to make a go of it in summer 2021 but lasted only a few weeks. Otherwise it’s stood empty and been a magnet for vandalism.

By August 2024 it’s been increasingly targeted by youths and is now fenced off. Thankfully, local vet Andrew Mellor is interested in making the building into his new practice. A planning application has been submitted for change of use and is widely welcomed by pet owners and the local community.

Watch this space!

Parking

There is plenty of free parking for patrons of Jubilee Leisure Park at the car park alongside the complex.

Wanting to use the beach and seafront? Find further long stay, paid-for parking at nearby Jubilee Gardens.

• More information on car parking in Cleveleys

Jubilee Gardens and The Venue

These newer buildings are officially Jubilee Leisure Park, but this whole area of seafront is most definitely a place for leisure!

Along with the amazing public space that’s the beautiful seafront, there’s also the green space of Jubilee Gardens. And standing tall over the promenade is The Venue – a great place to eat and drink with the best sea views!

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The Gym Building – before it became a gym…

There was a page on the old Visit Cleveleys website about the long and chequered history of this building on Cleveleys seafront. Sadly, it seems to have been deleted in 2018 with a move to an updated website version.

So here are a few photos and a potted history to remind you of what’s happened there previously. If we can find anything else (or even the old page) we’ll let you know!

In the beginning…

This building first opened as Sub Zero Ice Arena in May 2011. If we remember rightly, it was the year that Dancing on Ice first hit our TV screens. Unfortunately, the opening was delayed until just after the hit TV series finished…

Jubilee Ice Arena

We can’t quite remember the finer details, but the original Sub Zero had been besieged with problems. The Directors had argued, the original company was closed, then continued with a slightly different name and some of the original owners still on board.

Eventually that went into liquidation and new owners came in to rescue the rink. Enter Jubilee Ice Arena in October 2013.

Cleveleys Ice Arena

Then the Jubilee Ice Arena people pulled out, so a group of parents and skaters banded together to try to rescue the facility.

They did really well with the limited resources at their disposal. Unfortunately the equipment in the building hadn’t been properly maintained. With enormous costs ahead to keep the boiler going, they were forced to close.

Knuckleheads Opens

By now it was clear that it wasn’t going to be possible to operate a financially viable ice rink in Cleveleys. The building lay empty and closed for quite some time.

In October 2016 a local family business ripped the rink out and did a complete refit to open a new children’s play centre – known as Knuckleheads.

By this time, the interior of the building was in an awful state of repair. Condensation from the ice had played havoc with the building so clearing it out and making it fit to use was a huge undertaking in itself. But nonetheless, it was done and traded well – until the business rates review.

Unfortunately that saw the business rates jump significantly, to an annual amount that wasn’t sustainable. Once again the building was to close…

Another Children’s Play Centre

Knuckleheads wasn’t closed for long at all before it reopened as another indoor children’s play centre. The name of which we can’t for the life in us remember! Visit Cleveleys went in to meet them and we also took some photos of the new set-up (but we can’t find them for the minute either!)

Finally, the building was leased by JD Gyms and opened in February 2019.

Apologies if any of these details aren’t quite correct. We’ve gone off the date stamp on photos and written the text from memory!

Please remember that photos used in this article are copyright to Visit Cleveleys, except where otherwise stated