Ivan Horsfall Turner has dedicated more than three decades to public leisure, driven by a belief in the power of community leisure to improve lives.
In 1995, inspired by the emerging charitable trust model discussions at a seminar run by Mark Sesnan OBE who had set up Greenwich Leisure Limited, Ivan, the then Acting Assistant Head of Leisure at Wealden District Council, recognised that there was a better and more sustainable way to deliver local authority leisure services.
Seven years later, that vision became reality when he and Jeff Hart, the Head of Leisure at Wealden District Council, led the creation of Wealden Leisure Limited, trading as Freedom Leisure. On 1 April 2002, the organisation took responsibility for four leisure centres on behalf of Wealden District Council.
Freedom Leisure has since grown from those four centres into one of the UK’s leading not-for-profit leisure trusts under Ivan since he became CEO in 2013; now working with 30 local authority partners and operating 136 leisure centres, alongside cultural facilities, across England and Wales.
Perhaps Ivan’s greatest achievement is not simply the scale of Freedom Leisure’s growth, but what that growth has enabled.
He has built an organisation around a clear social purpose: Improving Lives Through Leisure. With no shareholders and no dividends, Freedom Leisure reinvests in the facilities, services and communities it serves.
Ivan has consistently championed the role of leisure beyond traditional sport and fitness. Under his leadership, Freedom Leisure has developed programmes tackling health inequalities, social isolation, mental health and barriers to physical activity. Initiatives range from Strength in Mind, using Olympians to engage young people around mental health and physical activity, to specialist Box Fit programmes supporting people living with Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and the effects of stroke.
He has also demonstrated that social purpose and commercial sustainability can go hand in hand. When Freedom Leisure began operating in Wealden in 2002, the leisure service cost the council £1 million each year. Today, Freedom Leisure pays the council, a remarkable transformation achieved through growth, innovation and continual reinvestment.
Ivan’s leadership has been tested by some of the most challenging conditions the leisure sector has experienced.
Most notably, the energy crisis saw Freedom Leisure’s annual utility costs increase from approximately £8 million to £24 million as fixed contracts ended. Rather than allowing those pressures to undermine the organisation’s social mission, Ivan led a determined response based on innovation, partnership and long-term thinking.
Freedom Leisure has invested significantly in solar energy, air and ground source heat pumps, pool covers and emerging technologies, supported by a dedicated sustainability and environmental team. At the same time, Ivan has remained resolute that affordability must be protected and that price should not become a barrier to participation.
Throughout financial pressures, rising staffing costs, the COVID pandemic and an increasingly challenging local government environment, Ivan has continued to adapt while remaining focused on the fundamental purpose of community leisure: serving everyone, particularly those who need it most.
Ivan inspires through purpose, consistency and example.
Despite leading an organisation of considerable scale, he remains motivated by what happens at community level – seeing people of every age, background and ability participating and benefiting from physical activity.
He has created a culture in which success is measured not only financially or through participation numbers, but through the difference leisure can make to people’s lives.
His commitment to partnership extends beyond Freedom Leisure. Ivan is a strong believer in the collaborative ethos of Community Leisure UK and in trusts sharing knowledge and best practice for the benefit of the wider sector.
Above all, his leadership demonstrates that an organisation can be ambitious, innovative and commercially resilient without losing sight of its social purpose.
Personally, Ivan has always had an interest in sport. In 1986, he competed in the World Cross-Country Championships in Switzerland for Wales and has competed in 5 Ironman events across the UK and Europe.
As an avid competition swimmer in not only Ironman events, Ivan has also been a big supporter of swimming and the health benefits that can be attributed to this leisure activity. He is also a great supporter of the Swimathon Foundation’s annual fundraiser ‘Swimathon’ and always takes part wherever he may be in the country.
A Lifetime Achievement Award should recognise more than longevity. It should recognise a career that has left the sector stronger and communities better served.
Ivan Horsfall Turner has done exactly that.
He took an idea that inspired him in 1995 and turned it into an organisation that today operates 136 leisure centres with 30 local authority partners across England and Wales. But his legacy cannot be measured by numbers alone.
It can be seen in the services that have remained sustainable; the facilities that have been invested in; the partnerships that have endured; the inequalities that programmes are working to address; and, most importantly, the countless people whose physical, mental and social wellbeing has been improved through access to community leisure.
For more than three decades, Ivan has demonstrated what Seriously Social leadership looks like: putting people before profit, responding to adversity with innovation, sharing success with the wider sector and never losing sight of why community leisure exists.
Ivan has not simply built a successful leisure organisation. He has helped demonstrate the value, resilience and social impact of the trust model itself.
