In 2011 the population of Abingdon was 36,000 and that was about the time that the District Council decided to build a leisure centre for the people of Abingdon. The result was the White Horse Tennis and Leisure Centre with 8,892 square metres of facilities.
In 2011 the population of Wantage and Grove and neighbouring villages was about 22,000. By 2020, when the new leisure centre will be built, the approved new housing developments will bring this figure to approximately 34,000.

In 2012 a study for the District Council suggested that Wantage Leisure Centre (built in 1976) needed between £1-2 million spent on renovations. We do not believe that anything like that sum has been spent because, until 2020, it was expected that the existing Leisure Centre would be replaced.

In January 2021 the District Council stated that it was committed to producing an Active Community Strategy and hoped that this would be completed by the end of March 2021 and that it would establish the community recreation and leisure needs for the Vale - nothing has been produced yet.