I would like to reassure residents that the Council has no plans to remove leisure facilities from the Britannia site – in fact, we want to improve them.

It’s true that we are considering building a school – and some housing to fund it – on this site, as available land is extremely limited and we need to provide 1,650 new secondary school places by 2020. As we recently explained in a letter to local residents, the proposals are at an early stage and we’re currently carrying out a feasibility study to examine them further. The proposals being considered as part of the feasibility study all include a new, improved leisure centre, with up-to-date facilities which better suit the needs of the community.

At the moment, Britannia costs a significant amount of money to operate and maintain. We have specified, as part of the feasibility study, improved, minimum standards that we would expect from the new leisure centre. When we have the results of the feasibility study, we will share them with residents and leisure centre users and hold open drop-in sessions for people to find out more and feedback their initial thoughts. There would be further opportunities for people to have their say if plans progress.