Sports Centre named as election count venue

We can today confirm Portslade Sports Centre will be used as the venue for the General Election vote count on Thursday 4 and Friday 5 July.

The calling of the snap election by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meant we had to find a suitable venue in a short space of time.

Our usual venue for election counts is the Brighton Centre, but this is already booked for shows by ‘Bluey’, the famous children’s TV character.

We’re therefore grateful to both Freedom Leisure and PACA school for allowing us to use their facilities for three days on Wednesday 3, Thursday 4 and Friday 5 July.

It means there will be no access to the Sports Centre building, its outside spaces nor its carpark during this three-day closure.

PACA will stay open as normal for school time, but the use of the sports fields will be limited over the three-day period.

We looked at other venues in the city, but none are as suitable as the sports centre which will be able to hold 500 people and 150 count tables, has good accessibility, large areas for declaring the winners and accommodating the media.

Freedom Leisure, which runs the sports centre on behalf of the council, has already contacted its customers to let them know of the closure and will be providing gym and studio access to its members at other sites across the city and, where possible, relocating group and club activities.

The council realises the closure of the sports centre will cause inconvenience to some of our residents and customers, but we hope everyone can understand the reasons.