A new King Alfred Leisure Centre could have better public transport links, councillors were told yesterday (Thursday 25 September).
The potential changes include extending the fully electric number seven bus route so that it starts and finishes by the King Alfred rather than in Goldstone Villas.
The prospect emerged as Brighton and Hove City Council’s cabinet discussed taking the plans for the proposed new £65 million leisure centre to the technical design stage.
Labour councillor Trevor Muten, the council’s cabinet member for transport and city infrastructure, said that he was holding talks with Brighton and Hove Buses.
Councillor Muten said: “There’ll be a really good bus service – or bus services with the 700 as well – to connect our residents via public transport to the new facility.
“There’s more to update on that but the conversations are advanced with that.”
“Concept designs” were presented to the council’s cabinet for two swimming pools, a six-court sports hall, family entertainment zone, cafeteria and fitness suite, plus soft play and a clip and climb, or similar attraction.
Labour councillor Alan Robins, the council’s cabinet member for sports, recreation and libraries, said that the new leisure centre would have 10,250 square metres of space.
Councillor Robins said: “The old facility has so much wasted space, over-wide corridors, places that lead nowhere. Odd bits and pieces all over the place.
“(In the proposed replacement) the space is used with so much more sense and there’s less wasted space and I believe the new facility will be at least equal if not better.”
Councillor Robins dismissed opposition claims that the council was rushing ahead, saying that the current project had been 25 years in the making, with three previous failed attempts.
Labour councillor Joy Robinson, an adviser to the council’s cabinet on procurement and contract management, praised the decision to separate the housing element from the leisure centre.
Councillor Robinson said: “We’re releasing a chunk of land to provide much-needed housing and this will help fund this development.
“This approach we have taken means we’ll be in control of this leisure centre’s design and build.”
The council expects to receive between £17.3 million and £26.4 million from selling 60 per cent of the existing site for housing, with 40 per cent set aside for “affordable” homes and demolition costs funded by grants from government agency Homes England.
Since the business case was presented to the cabinet in July last year, the estimated cost of the new King Alfred has gone up from £47.4 million to £65 million.
A report said that this resulted from a “more realistic view” of the cost of an “undercroft car park”, better facilities, a new entrance plaza and inflation in the construction sector.
But the revised budget included more money from the sale of part of the site for housing and the headline cost included £9.8 million for contingencies and inflation.
The council expects to borrow between £38.6 million and £47.7 million from the Public Works Loan Board. The cost of repaying the debt over 50 years would be between £1.95 million and £2.4 million a year.
At a meeting of the council’s Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Monday (22 September), Labour councillor Julie Cattell, who represents Westbourne and Poets Corner, asked why a 50-metre pool was not one of the options.
Councillor Cattell said: “I’ve seen a lot of people, who are actually from outside of Brighton and Hove, saying: ‘Why aren’t you putting in a 50-metre pool? Why are you only putting in a 25-metre pool?
“I know why but I would like it aired in this meeting as to why it’s not an option to retain and restore the existing beloved King Alfred.”
She was told that competitive swimmers favoured a 50-metre pool but leisure swimmers did not.
The K2 swimming pool, in Crawley, has a barrier to divide the 50-metre pool in half because there was more demand from people who wanted to swim widths or a 23-metre length.
The committee was also told that 50-metre pools were more expensive to build and operate.
It was also told that structural engineers had previously said that refurbishing the building would be too expensive because it had been built in a piecemeal way over many decades.
And the council had consulted Sport England and other organisations before moving forward with the current design.
Conservative councillor Ivan Lyons, who represents Westdene and Hove Park ward and who said that he learnt to swim at the King Alfred, criticised the design and £65 million cost.
Councillor Lyons said: “It looks bland. It’s boring. It’s something I would actually expect to see in a business park. It’s uninspiring.
“We had Frank Gehry coming in a few years ago with more of a vision than having a box which is almost a cheap version of what has been built at Splashpoint (in Worthing).”
Labour councillor Jacob Taylor, the deputy leader of the council, said that the designs were not boring but “really nice” and that serious consideration was given to the increased costs.
He said that Councillor Lyons seemed to be suggesting that the council could somehow spend less money on a design that would look fancier.
Councillor Taylor said: “If you want a vibrant city with good assets for the community, including key bits of infrastructure, of which a leisure centre is one, you’ve got to invest to get there. You’ve got to invest to have top-class assets for the city, which comes at a cost.
“What we’re doing is making decisions on a few key projects and assets that we’ve got to invest in for the city.
“Madeira Terraces on the east of the city is one of them because it is vital for the east of the city – and the King Alfred is the other big one on the west of the city because it is vital for the services and facilities the city needs.”
The cabinet agreed to include the £65 million project in its capital investment programme and to allocate £2.3 million for the next stage of the design and enabling works.
These works would include demolishing parts of the site, including the old car park, the green-roofed area of the former bowling alley and laser tag site and eventually the current King Alfred.
But councillors were told that the aim was to have the new swimming pool and leisure centre up and running before the current King Alfred was closed.
New pool. Padel. Volleyball. All near Rockwater. Council are spoiling us. Super!
With all the new attractions at hove, king Alfred does stick out like a sore thumb, it’s dilapidated and the car park is an eyesaw. I do wish they would push the bus company to extend the number 7 bus even now rather than in a year or twos time as it definitely stops people going that far having to walk down from George Street.
Maybe once they take the bike lane off the sea side, they could put a slip road for the bus there.
Design looks great. Can’t wait to see the apartments. Imagine investors will snap them up
Seafront properties on the Hove side with a sports complex on their doorstep? Absolutely!
The council said the same thing about promising better bus services with the Royal Mail site at Patcham, but it came out in a freedom of information request that the bus company were reluctant and the council said in an email to them that “it’s an application with a particularly large number of objections and one of the main highways concerns being raised by residents is around overspill parking. Getting a better bus service is something we have already flagged as necessary to counter this.”
In further correspondence the council told the bus company that they believed the a bus to Patcham would “tip the balance” and the bus company seemed to relent after being pressed, saying in and email back to the council that “As you know we aren’t keen on diverting the morning trip but as this seems to be a potential dealbreaker we will do it”.
Mentioning it here, as I do find it concerning that the council tries to dangle carrots like this and not all is as it always seems. The King Alfred should be judged on its own merits, and as we saw up in Patcham, the council pressed the bus company to divert an early morning bus route to try and get the application through, which just doesn’t feel like a transparent way of operating.
So what your saying is the bus company didn’t want to provide a bus to royal mail patcham, the council pushed them and then they said they would. Sounds like a council doing it’s job properly. Not sure what your point is
Nope – the bus company were pressured into providing an extra bus service for a year, despite their concerns that it was not a voable route in the long term. To be fair to the bus company, they told the council that because they havd concerns about the viability of the route, they couldn’t “justify” taking section 106 money to run it.
Yet the council in their presentation to the planning committee did imply that the bus company were getting a s106 contribution, and they implied that the bus company were fully on board and had no reservations. The council relied heavily on the provision of this bus route when the planning application was discussed
A council pressuring a bus company to agree to run a bus route for a year that they do not believe to be viable, and would therefore likely stop after a year, as a way to address 1000 residents concerns about parking is not a listening council, and one act in a bullish (and questionable) way imo.
Most postmen/women don’t drive to work, no parking in the north lanes and very little at hove station, so I’m sure most will cycle or bus it, in which case the bus company would probably be proved wrong. Storm in a teacup over.
They said the same about the 1X that it wouldn’t work, which the council pushed for and that’s doing really well. Judging by the comments from the bus drivers I don’t think B&H busses management have a particular grasp on reality.
An electric bus route does not make up for losing the community facilities and up to 50% of the sports facilities at the current King Alfred, if you count FitLab. I bet the new undersized ‘King Alfred’ will be a LOT more expensive too. The Council have to claw that £65m build cost back somehow. You’d have to be crazy to think this project is for the residents’ benefit. It is a greedy land grab of public assets, relying on enough people to be taken in by a shiny new bauble ‘hub’, which may or may not get built. It sounds like a con because no one would pay that much for a wooden box with a few windows in it.
We know how it will be paid for though. And also, let’s not forget that during the consultation, residents opted for this site even with the higher cost.
This is what people wanted.
Hopefully the grant from Homes England will be significant, as they would get more from a developer if there was less of a requirement for affordable homes… as more of these could be built in the less premium locations in B&H for the same amount of money
Pretty much the only way to get affordable housing these days is to ensure grant subsidiary.
Councillor Lyons said:
“We had Frank Gehry coming in a few years ago …”
It was almost 20 years ago in November 2008 when the Gehry plan was shut down (when the Tories led the council and the late Mary Mears was the leader.)
As good as the Service 700 is, I think a direct route from Steine to King Alfred would be better-that runs all the way along the Seafront-700 goes from Steine into Town-cuts down Grand Ave then to King Alfred-no bus service as yet goes all the way along past Hotels, Brighton Centre, Paddling Pools, Brightoni360, Hove Lawns-that could be a popular route.
New King Alfred will fit in with what we have down at Seafront right now, all dated and that red brick looks so cold and un inviting-surprised people even go along.