Plans for a new public swimming pool are due to go before Brighton and Hove City Council’s cabinet on Thursday (17 July).
And the cabinet is expected to approve a £6.9 million budget for the pool at the Withdean Sports Complex and to agree that officials should prepare and submit a planning application.
The estimated cost of the project has risen from £5.8 million in January last year and a report to the cabinet said that most of the funds would be raised by borrowing.
The report said that the pool was expected to bring in revenues of £568,000 a year and – after repayments of £339,000 a year – generate a surplus of £229,000.
Over the past year to 18 months, detailed design and survey work has been carried out to prepare the project for the formal planning process.
In January, the council appointed a specialist pool company, ReCreation, to lead the design stage of the project for a five-lane 25-metre community pool.
The council said that it would be the fourth public pool in Brighton and Hove and was part of the council’s plan and its “Let’s Get Moving” physical activity strategy, approved last year.
A recent online survey, carried out last month, had responses from 942 people. Some 84 per cent said that they would be likely or very likely to use the pool.
Of those who would use the new pool, 57 per cent said that they would travel by car, 42 per cent would walk, 21 per cent cycle and 13 per cent travel by bus.
Initially, the proposals would have meant the loss of 37 parking spaces but the architects have found other land on the site for overflow parking, reducing the likely number of lost spaces to seven.
The report said that some people were unconcerned about lost parking but others were worried about the knock-on effects on nearby streets.
Several people said that they wanted the pool to be built as soon as possible – and the current timetable suggests work starting next February and taking a year.
The plan to build the pool follows previous consultations about sports facilities in Brighton and Hove which highlighted the age and poor condition of the existing alternatives.
The council is looking to replace one of those – the King Alfred on Hove seafront – and when work takes place, the town would temporarily have no public swimming pools.
The report said: “Data tells us that swimming remains the most popular activity for our residents and, as a coastal city, there is a need to ensure our children and young people have the opportunity to learn to swim.
“The new facility proposed to replace the King Alfred Leisure Centre won’t be complete until spring 2028 at the earliest.
“Further feasibility for our future leisure centre in the east of the city is still required which means the challenge of keeping the council’s current pools open and operational will remain for a number of years.
“In addition to the strategic case, the financial case included in this report demonstrates how a new community pool can be delivered in a sustainable and affordable way for the council.”
A council that closes libraries and schools and can’t answer phone calls and respond to missed bin reports, but has money to build a new build a new school.
And why would there be no public swimming pools at all if / when the King Alfred regeneration happens, has the Prince Regent been shut? Does that not still exist or is there something I’ve missed?
Clare, I would recommend you read every word in a sentence. I quote from the article:
“The council is looking to replace one of those – the King Alfred on Hove seafront – and when work takes place, the town would TEMPORARILY have no public swimming pools.”
So why would the city temporarily have no swimming pools if / when work is done at the King Alfred? Why would the Prince Regent swimming pool not be open during any King Alfred refurb / regeneration?? I have read every word of the article Benjamin, and it’s unclear why there would be no public swimming pools open if / when work happens at the King Alfred”. It implies that the Prince Regent would also be shut and not open to the public at the same time, which would just be odd!
I don’t have issue with a new pool in Withdean by the way – just have issue with contradictory information and the weird way the council always seems to frame these things!
Because, as the article clearly implies, these projects would be running concurrently within Withdean. It’s not contradictory, you’re just arguing some semantics incorrectly. That’s what it is important to read every word in the sentence carefully.
Please don’t patronise Benjamin, I have read every word. Even if the council closes the King Alfred and it coincides with the Withdean pool being built, the Prince Regent should still be open, so there will not be a situation whereby the city does not have an open pool, unless the council is planning to do work at, or close the Prince Regent at the time it regenerates the King Alfred and the Withdean pool hasn’t been completed.
Not worth wasting any of your precious time arguing with him/her Clare, he/she thinks he/she is a ‘clever’ troll but is a complete idiot.
I don’t read so much as a syllable of his/her ‘content’
And yes you’re right, why would the Prince Regent pool be shut?
As a regular user of it, I’ve heard nothing at all about it being closed at a future date.
A vanity project.We don’t need it Sankey.Spend our money on what we need,not the people of West Dean.
The people of west Dene need a swimming pool
Swimming pools are hardly vanity projects, James. Better access to sporting facilities is exactly what we need. There’s a ton of research and data that supports this.
I thought this council was verging on bankruptcy only a year ago, claiming it has no choice but to close schools and Libraries all over the place but suddenly it has £6.9m (£0.9m above the £6m last advertised) for a new swimming pool????
How?
And how will BHCC be allowed to borrow the estimated £47m needed to demolish and rebuild the King Alfred when it still paying £2.2m a year in i360 debt back to the Public Works Loan Board until 2041 from taxpayer’s money, so not written off at all! A public lie. Meanwhile the new former-Dragon owner of i360 acquired the i360 debt-free for next to nothing, if you count the works the council did to it before giving it to her. Plus she only needs to pay 1% of any profits to BHCC each year. What a sweetheart deal, that is.
The answer to your question comes from the article itself – most of the funds would be raised by borrowing. It’s really basic. The project is also a generator of income; it will effectively pay for itself, and is of little financial risk, as opposed to your examples, which cost year-on-year to continue, so it easily makes sense financially.
Secondly, not understanding what was done with the i360 is just personal incredulity, not a lie. The previous establishment where forgiven their debts to the BHCC. Yes, the BHCC still owes money to the PWLB, that’s not been forgiven. Pragmatically, that was the only way anyone else was going to take over that space.
Benjamin, you seem to overlook the fact that borrowed money has to be paid back – WITH interest – and it will take years for the new swimming pool to break even, let alone start turning a profit.
Meanwhile we were lied to about the i360 debt as most people are not aware ‘written off’ just meant for the previous owners and the new owner. The rest of us will still be paying for this white elephant for many years to come and are seeing statutory services cut for this financial crime against us. We also have the £15m plus interest Jubilee Library PFI debt financial white elephant sucking up half the Libraries budget each year for 25 years which is wholly unacceptable and should never have been entered into. This Council cannot be trusted with public money when it comes to sound project investment, as they have proven, time and time again. Every deal they do is a bad one, including allegedly giving the Downs stadium site to the Albion football club for free.
Another straw man argument. Of course, borrowed money has to be paid back. I argued that the project generates income to offset that repayment. It’s important to read the whole sentence carefully, Elaine.
Haha. And this coming from the most frequent user of straw man arguments in the entire comments section! Utterly conflicted and completely disingenuous. Please don’t take what he has to say seriously.
An ad hominem with no substance, Atticus.
The council is still paying off the Jubilee Library PFI from 20 years ago and that’s not stopping the council from considering reducing the opening hours.
I think it’s actually incredulous of you Benjamin, not Elaine, to suggest that the council practically giving away the i360 to a businesswoman to turn around, while lumbering residents with the debt is nothing short of scandalous.
Either way, it’s not OK for you to personally attack people in the way you do when you have a difference of opinion. I wasn’t minded to comment on this article, but your tone replying to Elaine’s comment is not OK imo.
Let’s not forget the council still have millions left to pay of the PFI loan they took out to build the Jubilee Library and yet that’s not stopping them from proposing to cut the opening hours there (presumably because of funding / budget issues).
It’s beyond belief that the council gave the i360 away in the way they did and I agree it’s shocking they are closing schools and libraries and picking and choosing when to claim they can’t afford to do basic maintenance (like reserving enough budget to meet the annual pothole maintenance bill) and when they can afford to invest in other projects.
If this is a precedent to smothering the King Alfred redevelopment in the future then Stop! The prime land of the King Alfred i feel may intice corruption, however it belongs to the people and is a public space and its future to stay needs to be ensured… The whole of the seafronts accessible continuous sports facilities are for everyone and are incredibly popular, they should not be interrupted by a private block of unaffordable apartments and baksheeshs. .. The King Alfred could be designed to be an incredible space opening up more on the seafront with a cafe and bar and having the pool opened up on the seafront side… And a roof garden.. like many of the new establishments happening now… Fitness and healthy food is where its at currently… With the advent of the Internet people have become smarter, being able to fact check for themselves and the kids of today, the adults of tomorrow are smart and consciously fit and healthy… We should be investing in the accessable to all King Alfred Centre not the suburbs of Withdean.
This has nothing to do with the King Alfred regeneration project.
Of course it does. Give with one hand. Take away with the other. Then when people realise the council have no serious intention to replace the King Alfred, (not even any artist’s impressions or plans ffs), but hey everyone, look at this shiny new swimming pool over here… And look, you’ve got Kingsway to the Sea. What more do you want?
That is just a straw man argument using a false dilemma.
So again, this has nothing to do with the King Alfred regeneration project.
There he goes again… laughable but unfortunately not funny.
Another ad hominem with no substance, Atticus.
There is no ‘regeneration’ project. Council are DEMOLISHING the King Alfred. And so far there are no plans or drawings for anything to take its place.
Of course there is a regeneration project, and easily verifiable. What a truly bizarre lie to claim. Claiming that it doesn’t exist because someone hasn’t drawn a picture is strange. It’s important you actually read up on topics before you criticise them, so you don’t get caught out by making comments like that; you’ve been doing it a lot today.
It is 100% true to say there are no plans or drawings for the King Alfred – at least in the public domain.
Or are you alluding to the private domain?
In which case, they need to be made public asap. The excessive secrecy needs to be ended.
FYI, Regeneration and demolition ARE mutually exclusive terms, though often conflated in developer-speak, so their proposals are more publicly palatable.
Elaine, this is getting silly. You’ve now shifted from “there is no regeneration project” to “there are no public drawings,” which is a very different claim. The regeneration project exists, full stop; it’s been referenced in council strategy papers, funding proposals, and planning frameworks. A classic case of shifting the goalposts.
Regeneration and demolition are not mutually exclusive terms. This isn’t how planning works. Demolition is often a first step in regeneration; there’s nothing contradictory about that. Suggesting otherwise is a textbook argument from ignorance.
You’re perfectly entitled to question transparency or ask for more detail, but pretending the project doesn’t exist because you haven’t personally seen the drawings is willfully misleading.
Benjamin, you are getting quite tetchy. These off hand and ‘eyes-skyward’ responses are really not a good look!
Fair point. I’m finding the repetition of misinformed and conspiratorial framing a bit draining today, but that’s no excuse for being terse. Thanks for the check.
Interesting rapport, think Benjamin just scrapes in!!!
King Alfred needs knocked down and the land used to provide affordable housing with a mix of social housing( for people born and bred in the area). But not over developed like Shoreham by sea that has been ruined.
A housing project was suggested initially, and a new space was to be built elsewhere as part of the decision about what to do with the King Alfred. People voted to regenerate it instead.
In our modern, fair-minded, free-thinking, inclusive, tolerant, accepting, cosmopolitan city by the seaside, I often wonder if we could give up a good amount of that perceived reputation, in return for the actual provision of all municipal services, competently, transparently and honestly managed, fit for purpose, accessible, and inexpensive to the user.
You can’t run a city in the same fashion as a profit-led, commercial business, they require different skillsets to deliver.
Give us the things that we think we should already have, that they all think that we already do have, and maybe, fairly quickly, we might soon be living in a wonderfully marvellous city of Oz, instead of hiding behind an increasingly embarrassing, threadbare, unfit for purpose, grotty, curtain in the corner.
Yes, build a pool at Withdean, but scale it up so it still has value in thirty years time.
King Alfred, Prince Regent and St Lukes are all on their last legs.
Sacrifice another two dozen car park spaces now in return for greater area, floor plan.
Work begins before Christmas and the builder’s firm is utterly unconnected to anyone on the civic payroll.
(I reckon I could do it for a fiver less than that.)
Good god…..that was exhausting!
If someone in Brighton cured cancer, you’d still bring out the strawman argument of ‘well maybe they could fix the potholes’. Honestly, whatever went wrong in you lives, I hope one day you find peace and happiness because this I’m afraid, is not it.
How much will it cost the public to swim there without a Withdean membership? If the council is putting forward our money surely the pricing structure should be secured as part of the agreement so that it’s not out of reach for most.
I want a swimming pool at Withdean Sports Complex. I don’t care about any of the issues above (or below).
Withdean and nearby areas surely have more private pools and other private fitness facilities than any other part of the City. So why put a new public pool where it will have least benefit?