Leisure, Culture and Events
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The Education, Culture and Sport Service provides a wide range of opportunities for participation in cultural and leisure activities in the Highlands. It achieves this in a variety of ways through direct provision and management of facilities and services and though partnership with various voluntary groups and other organisations. The overall focus of leisure provision is on health improvement and life long learning. Over the next two years we will be planning and delivering 2024 the Highland Year of Culture which will offer a unique opportunity to showcase the best of Highland Culture and also enable us to introduce new facilities across Highland. The range of leisure opportunities provided by the service includes: archives; the arts, art galleries and venues; events; museums and heritage; community halls; libraries; activity programmes for all the family; community learning centres; community learning opportunities; community amenity picnic sites and recreation areas; sports pitches, sport and leisure centres, and swimming pools. The Service owns and manages swimming pools at Fort William, Portree, Golspie, Nairn, Thurso, Wick, Dingwall, Invergordon, and Alness. The Service also works closely with the voluntary sector in providing swimming pools at Inverness Aquadome, Bettyhill, Kyle of Lochalsh, Ullapool, Mallaig, Poolewe, and Tain and the Hydrotherapy Puffin Pool in Dingwall. Sport and leisure centres owned and managed by the Service, include Gairloch, Dingwall, Invergordon, Black Isle, Lochbroom, Fort William, while provision at Inverness is managed by the charitable company Caledonia Community Leisure Limited. We also provide an extensive network of public libraries including mobile library services to remoter areas of Highland. The libraries through the People’s Network also provide access to the Internet for the public. Our High Life leisure scheme offers special benefits to all cardholders using our leisure centres and pools including exclusive deals for regular users, people looking for work, senior citizens, anyone in full time education and family groups. Your High Life card can also double up as your Library Card and be used to borrow books from any Highland Library. The Service is committed to the development and promotion of the Gaelic culture and language and works closely with Gaelic organisations to achieve this aim across all Service activities. |
