Leicester City Centre - Facilities

Facilities

Although home to a variety of theatres, such as the Haymarket Theatre, Little Theatre and Phoenix Arts, there is currently no major mainstream cinema left in the city centre (although there is a small cinema showing mainstream films on Abbey Street, and Phoenix Arts has a regular programme of art-house and world cinema), however a cinema de lux is being constructed as part of Highcross Leicester (Now completed and the busiest and largest cinema in Leicester). The nearest currently being the Odeon at Freemen's Common, some way to the south. The old Odeon was refurbished and opened in 2005 as the Leicester Athena, a conferencing and banqueting venue. The former ABC Cinema on Belgrave Gate has now been demolished and is currently being used as a car park, the site will be turned in to a new shopping area with shops, casino, theatre and a new link road which will provide access to the new Highcross Leicester and St. Margaret's bus station.

Since the closure of St Margaret's baths, there is no municipal swimming pool in the city centre. Its replacement, the Braunstone Leisure Centre, is some miles away in Braunstone.

The area in the inside of the ring-road is nearly entirely built up, with only Nelson Mandela Park (at the extreme south, in Southfields), and Town Hall Square being considerable open spaces. Outside the ring road are Castle Gardens, by Leicester Castle, and Victoria and Abbey Park.

Musical venues in the city are somewhat limited - the largest two venues, De Montfort Hall (mentioned above) and University of Leicester's union, are both in Southfields, some way from the city centre, whose main venues include the pub-sized The Musician, Firebug, and The Shed.

Several old Anglican churches are based in or around the city centre. St Martin's is now Leicester Cathedral. The other four historic parishes were St Margaret's, St Mary de Castro, All Saints', and St Nicholas'. The first Anglican Church to be built in the city after the medieval period was St George's - contrary to popular belief, this is not empty and disused but is in fact a Serbian Orthodox Church, used by the Serbian Orthodox people as a place of worship, regularly. The city centre is covered by an extensive system of CCTV cameras, supplemented by CCTV vans. Now that the main police station on Charles Street has closed, City Centre policing is based in a building off Belgrave Gate.