Sandwell Council has unveiled an initial site plan and design principles for a new leisure centre development in Smethwick – which include an urban park, children’s play area and changing facilities for football teams.
The new aquatics centre will host the swimming and diving events for the 2022 Commonwealth Games – as well as serving Smethwick as a world class leisure centre for decades to come.
It will have an Olympic-sized competition swimming pool, a 25m diving pool, sports hall, gyms and a cycling studio.
The site, at Londonderry Playing Fields, will also have hundreds of parking spaces while trees and paths around the site will be preserved and improved.
A full planning application will follow later in the winter, which will include a public consultation.
Sandwell Council’s cabinet member for leisure and the Commonwealth Games Councillor Bill Gavan said: “We’re now getting close to the planning application being finalised.
“We’ve outlined what we want to do with the site, which includes a new urban park, keeping and improving a football pitch and building new team changing rooms as well as a brand-new outdoor children’s play area – not to mention the fantastic facilities we’ll have inside the building.
“It’s exciting for us to be hosting an international event while creating a building that’s going to deliver top-class leisure opportunities for local people.”
Leader of Sandwell Council, Councillor Steve Eling, said: “Smethwick desperately needs new leisure facilities – the big public survey we did last year told us that.
“We’ve worked hard to identify a suitable site that is not green-belt and to draw up plans that retain this as a green space combined with what will be a fantastic leisure facility.
"It’s a huge honour for us to be hosting the swimming and diving events for the 2022 Commonwealth Games and not only that, for us to have the opportunity to build the best possible leisure centre we can for Smethwick.”
The new leisure facility will also include as a minimum:
- An Olympic-sized competition swimming pool, a 25m diving pool, and a community pool;
- 1,000 spectator seats;
- Diving and swimming events for the Games in 2022;
- Three activity studios;
- Minimum of 8-court sports hall;
- 125-station gym;
- 25-station ladies-only gym;
- Indoor cycling studio;
- Dry-dive facility;
- Sauna/steam room; and a
- Café
