Hey everyone!
Welcome back to the blog! Today I have another site review for you, this time on Southcoast CQB in Lee-on-Solent!
On the 23rd of June 2019, I was invited to Southcoast CQB to play at one of their open days. The site is located in Lee-on-Solent on the South coast of England, and as I live in Derby it took me just under 3 hours to get to the site (I left my house at 5.15am!). As the site is on a main-ish road, it is easy to find and signposted. On arrival, there was a friendly Marshall to greet incoming cars. The car park is pretty small so arrive early if you want a decent space.
Southcoast CQB is an urban/CQB site that has a lot of buildings to fight in, around and through, that mixes quite well with the challenging outdoor spaces. Some of the buildings are two stories which are accessible to players. In its early days, the site was used by the Royal Marines Arms Corps between 1922-1959, the South East District Small Arms Corp as a minor training facility in 1961 and a weekend training centre up to the mid-1970s for army cadets. Now it hosts airsofters every Thursday evening and two Sundays a month.
The facilities on site are good - the safe zone is spacious as it is a two-story building - we had a double room upstairs which was big enough for seven of us and our kit. You have to go to another room to fill in an insurance waiver and you pay in the main foyer - it is worth noting that payments are cash or PayPal, I think it would be a great idea for the site to invest in a PayPal card reader so players can pay on card as well! The sign in desk is also the shop that sells snacks/beverages and all the game day essentials such as BBs, pyro and gas. The site also has portaloos that are unisex - this is one of the only aspects that let the site down. Although they were well stocked with loo roll and anti bac, I would describe them as clean-ish. On Sundays there is a hot food wagon that is on site for lunch - I paid £6 for a cheeseburger, fries and a can of coke which was reasonable. The safety brief was comprehensive and the staff were welcoming.
We played a variety of games throughout the day, including team deathmatches and lots of objective based games. One of my personal favourites was the game where the teams had to collect the pegs from a basket in the centre of the site and take them back to their respawn - this game made for some REALLY intense gameplay and I had a great time slotting players from the showers with Names Nicco. The gameplay was quite evenly spread out around the site as the games utilised all areas. The site also has some cool props such as the bomb which also made for a great game.
Throughout the course of the day, I did notice some questionable hit taking - which I let the staff know about at the time and will be sending them the footage, and the staff got on the case pretty quickly. Unfortunately, none-hit taking is apart of airsoft, and reflects more on the player rather than the site and its staff.
Overall, I had a really good day at Southcoast CQB - the games were fun, engaging and run well by the staff - although the game where teams need to get a certain amount of players in the range needs a few tweaks. The playing area itself is a great mix of indoor and outdoor spaces that play really well, the variety it offers is great! The facilities available were good, but the loos could use some work. Food was great, staff were friendly and most importantly we had a great day of shooting. Looking forward to the next visit!
Photography thanks to Ioan Roberts.
Photography thanks to Ioan Roberts.
