A Derbyshire council is set to build a new leisure centre and headquarters on a former mining site in a land swap which paved the way for 150 houses. Following an exclusive interview the Local Democracy Reporting Service can confirm South Derbyshire District Council is set to build a new leisure centre and HQ on the former Cadley Hill Colliery in Swadlincote.
Councillors are due to approve the budget for the project in the next month and have been discussing the issue in a series of private meetings over the past year, with only one public disclosure in December 2023. The new building, housing both the council and the leisure centre, would replace the existing HQ and Green Bank Leisure Centre facilities off Civic Way and see both eventually demolished and the combined site regenerated.
Following an eventual planning application, the council aims to have the new facility complete by Spring 2028, with neither the current HQ or Green Bank to close until the replacement building is operational. A plan for what will be built on the current site would be ready to go by the time it is due to be vacated, officials confirmed.
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The price of the new building is not yet available and the future of the current town centre properties is up for debate over the next few years, with the public to be consulted on what they would like to see. Officials had not been able to disclose the location of the site due to a competition for the plot in question against other organisations.
The new building would be built on land to the right of the existing access route for the Coronation Park and Swadlincote Family Golf Centre off William Nadin Way – south of the driving range – and would be accompanied by “significant” car parking facilities. Further land to the left of the access road, off Tetron Way, has also been bought by the council but would be used for a different purpose in the future, possibly by another business.
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A council approved masterplan for the site from 2020 had included an office block and leisure facility/gym, along with a pub and two cafes or restaurants, with separate planning permission for an adventure golf facility. Dr Justin Ives, the council’s chief executive, said the authority was able to obtain the prospective plot following a land swap with the owners, Harworth.
Council land to the south of Fairfield Crescent and Fairmeadows Foundation Primary School in Newhall was traded for a currently undisclosed fee – set by the district valuer – in the swap. Early this month, the council approved plans from Harworth to build 150 houses on the land to the south of Fairfield Crescent, with the swapped plot forming a core piece of the space for homes.
These 150 homes had not been part of the council-approved masterplan for the site, which included 600 homes which have now all either been built or are under construction across three separate plots. Dr Ives said the council’s purchase of land from Harworth would have gone ahead regardless of the swapped piece of land proceeding or the planning application for 150 homes being approved, stressing there was no “brown envelope” situation.
He said: “It was an area of land which was not worth a lot to use because it was surrounded by land we did not own, but it meant a lot more to the developer.” Dr Ives said the council HQ was built in 1977, when he was three years old.
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He said: “It has not had a lot of money spent on it and it doesn’t fit with the council’s programme anymore. We are an agile organisation, I am in the office three days a week and we have a policy of hybrid working. The building is made up of lots of little offices and that doesn’t lend itself to modern ways of working.”
He said the offices and the leisure centre were both “past their best”. Dr Ives said: “The district is expanding and we need to meet the needs of the growing community and the leisure centre needs to meet the needs of the future.
“The Cadley site is an attractive development site and while that is under way we will get working on the town centre masterplan, and I know members will have a lot of ambition for this site (the current HQ and leisure centre), and we will be working on the art of the possible.” He referred to a successful project in a previous role to redevelop the former HMP Northallerton site in Yorkshire into a cinema, shops, restaurants, supermarket and business incubation centre.
Dr Ives said that whatever happens with local government reform in the county in the next few years – with the district council to potentially be scrapped and merged into potentially one or two Derbyshire councils – he is confident a South Derbyshire council office will still be required. He said: “If services are being run from Matlock, they will still want an office in South Derbyshire.
“If not, an economic study of the district shows there is a need for high quality office space and this would be an attractive offer – connected to a leisure centre – and would be leasable.” He said the development could “make Swadlincote a leisure destination”.
Tracy Bingham, the council’s executive director for resources and transformation, said the new leisure centre would be “bigger and better”, including an eight-lane 25-metre swimming pool, with a floor which can be raised and lowered to accommodate people with disabilities, along with a family changing room. It would include a cafe and separate suite of gym equipment catering for people with wider rehabilitation needs, along with coach parking.
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Ms Bingham said the Cadley site had extensive “destination potential”, similar to the Moorways site in Derby, and would include a replication of the climbing wall. The council will be opening up a town centre hub in one of the High Street’s shop units to enable people who have mobility difficulties to access services easily.
Meanwhile, it will work with Derbyshire County Council and bus providers to extend the existing bus routes up to the Cadley site, along with wider connectivity improvements in that area. Ms Bingham said moving to the Cadley site was the most cost effective and a cheaper option than staying in the current location, which was the most expensive.
Funding for the new building would come from the council’s reserves and could also stem from wider grants, and the project is not reliant on the sale of the current building sites. Further details about the project as a whole will be made public in the coming months with a planning application to follow in due course.
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