In addition, it will have two squash courts, a four badminton court sports hall, a fitness suite with approximately 90 stations, a créche for Centre users and a multi use dance/meeting space which can be divided in to smaller individual spaces.

There will also be associated changing facilities, refreshment vending and sports equipment sales.

The new facility will have 186 car parking spaces, 9 spaces for motorcycles and about 20 spaces for cycles. Areas of the car park can also be used for coach parking when teams come for swimming galas, etc. When this is compared to Sutton Leisure Centre which only has about 20 spaces for members of the public and the Sutton Pools Complex which actually has none, you can see that the provision for vehicles is far better. When the new centre is open, the area currently used by cars around the Sutton Pools Complex will be able to be used for people to park to go in to town or visit local businesses.

Work commenced on site in late March 2007. One of the first items of work was to erect the site control offices from where the main contractor, Alfred McAlpine, manages this extensive project.

Work then followed on with grading the site to set the correct working levels.

Stone was then brought onto site to form the roadways and parking areas. At the same time as the roadways were being formed, the excavation of where the pool would be positioned within the complex was undertaken. Once the stone had been compacted, it was then ready to have a layer of tarmac put on top.

The latest position is that all the steel framework has been completed and the cladding on the roof is being put on. Once this is completed it will help make the building more weatherproof and should prevent days being lost to poor weather in the winter time.

Work is also progressing well on the internal blockwork, especially within the ice rink area with the bulk of the blockwork for the changing rooms and toilets now in place.

The concrete floors to the upper deck, which includes the bowls hall, the multi-use/dance area, the fitness suite and the sports hall, are also now well on the way to being completed.

One of the major concerns of the Council during the construction of this new facility is to have due regard for the environment.

To that end the Council, along with the principal contractor McAlpine, have instituted a number of initiatives.

These include:

• Recycling waste materials generated during the construction process;
• Sourcing materials from renewable resources wherever possible;
• The use of “grey” water if practicable;
• Installation of a heat recovery unit to reduce the cost of gas/electricity;
• The use of special glass either to retain heat [e.g. swimming pool] or to reflect heat [e.g. ice rink] to control the temperature of particular areas as appropriate.
• A combined heat and power unit is being installed to reduce the amount of gas/electricity used by the facility.

Discussions are currently underway regarding the installation of a combined heat and power unit which will also reduce the amount of gas/electricity the facility would require.

It is anticipated that the Centre will be open towards the end of 2008.

Select to view the location of the site on Mole