A £210,000 investment has been made in new gym equipment at leisure centres in Berinsfield, Thame, and Wheatley.

South Oxfordshire District Council's investment will see state-of-the-art equipment installed at the Park Sports Centre in Wheatley, Abbey Sports Centre in Berinsfield, and Thame Leisure Centre.

The new additions, which the council said are "great news for gym users across South Oxfordshire," will include treadmills, bikes, weights, and resistance machines to replace equipment that is more than 10-years-old.

Abbey Sports CentreAbbey Sports Centre (Image: South Oxfordshire District Council) Councillor Georgina Heritage, South Oxfordshire District Council’s cabinet member for communities, said: "Alongside all our other ongoing work to improve our leisure centres, this is fantastic news.

"Gym members can look forward to using the latest state-of-the-art equipment available across three of our centres.

"Supporting the wellbeing of our residents is a priority for us - so anything we can do to enhance our leisure offer and encourage more active lifestyles is wonderful."

The new equipment was purchased in partnership with leisure providers GLL from Technogym.

The council said this allowed it to secure the "best possible equipment" at "the best available price".

In a bid to become more environmentally friendly, much of the new equipment will be self-powered, and the old equipment will be returned to Technogym to be recycled.

The Technogym equipment also works off a ‘Wellness Cloud’, allowing residents to use Wi-Fi programmes across any leisure centre they are at for this system.

All equipment is compatible with the Better Mobile App used by members to support their fitness programmes.

Users will start to see the new equipment from late November and during December.

GLL partnership manager for South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse, Kevin Williams, said: "This is an exciting opportunity to introduce some of the most technically advanced fitness equipment to our community leisure centres.

"Not only will this enable members to better track their fitness programmes; the new kit is energy efficient, helping to reduce our carbon footprint."

The upgrades at Abbey Sports Centre are the latest in a list of recent improvements, including new changing rooms.

Work began in February to refurbish and modernise the changing rooms which dated back to the 1980s.

Environmentally friendly measures such as energy efficient LED lighting was installed, as well as eco-friendly hand-dryers and new toilet flushes and showers that use less water.

The centre also unveiled a new 3G artificial turf pitch at the start of the year, following a £180,000 investment.

The previous pitch, which dated back to 2009, had fallen into disrepair and was no longer playable.