Green light for leisure centre

Green light for leisure centre

25 September 2013

PLANS for a new Down Leisure Centre have reached the no return phase after the local authority gave the official go-ahead for advanced designs to be drawn up.

The move, which releases funding of around £200,000, will lead to the council going to tender and eventually building work starting on the Market Street site.

Wrangling over the site of the new centre and how much should be invested in the project had led to a series of delays, which prompted fears the plans could come to nothing if not secured before the council’s merger with Newry and Mourne.

in June an additional £2.4m expenditure was agreed, which takes the cost of the leisure centre project to almost £15m. This will be spent on extending the proposed fitness suite by over a third.

But a majority of politicians rejected suggestions that an additional £1.6m should be invested to widen the proposed 25 metre, six lane swimming pool and provide an enhanced spectator area.

At Monday’s meeting of Down Council councillor Stephen Burns said there was now a sense of impetus about the project, and that reaching the most detailed design phase was to be welcomed.

Councillor Colin McGrath also said important progress had been made.

“We needed to see plans for the leisure centre copperfastened,” he said. “This is good news.”

At a recent meeting of the Down Leisure Centre Project Board councillors heard there were still issues to resolve with the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) and its control of the site once building work gets underway.

The NIEA had raised concerns about soil contamination due to site’s close proximity to an old gas works. However, it is understood these outstanding issues will not prevent work starting at the site once full planning permission has been secured from the Department of the Environment