£5.75m investment agreed for cherished Clapton leisure centre
The future of Clapton’s King’s Hall Leisure Centre is looking brighter after an investment of £5.75million for repairs and to develop plans for a potential long-term refurbishment was agreed.
Recent surveys of the Lower Clapton Road leisure centre have identified that repairs are required to stabilise the building and allow it to continue to operate safely in the future.
Councillors agreed at Monday night’s Cabinet meeting to give the green light to plans to invest £3.1m for structural repairs, as well as £2.65m to carry out surveys and develop plans for potential longer-term refurbishment of the building.
King’s Hall, which is operated on behalf of the Council by social enterprise charity Better, offers a wide range of leisure facilities, including swimming pools, a gym and a sports hall.
King’s Hall is an important social and historic landmark for the borough and a crucial part of Hackney’s fantastic leisure provision. The Council has long recognised the impact that sport and physical activity can have on residents’ wellbeing.
We must ensure our leisure facilities continue to meet the demands and expectations of our community, especially with a growing population and reducing resources.
Thousands of residents have already been enjoying the Britannia Leisure Centre in Shoreditch which opened to the public at the end of June.
The state-of-the-art new facility features five-a-side football pitches on its roof with panoramic views of London, a water flume, two first-class swimming pools, an introduction to water pool, a splash pad, stunning fitness studios, squash courts and a sports hall.
We have shown our ambition with the opening of the new Britannia this summer, but we must meet the needs of residents in the east of the borough. All part of a network of facilities across the borough that we want to make as inclusive as possible.
It is vital that we invest in the long-term future of King’s Hall so that leisure centre users can enjoy modern facilities for years to come, something we have been working to achieve alongside local councillors.