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£40m leisure pool for Olympic site to be axed
Matthew Beard, Sports News Correspondent14.10.08
PLANS for a £40million leisure pool and fitness centre to be built in the Olympic Park are set to be scrapped due to financial pressures, the Evening Standard can reveal.
The complex was intended to deliver a lasting sports legacy for East End boroughs, whose residents are among the most inactive in Britain.
It was to have been built after 2012 as an extension to the aquatics centre, which has been designed by architect Zaha Hadid and will cost around £300million.
Local councils Newham and Tower Hamlets agreed to contribute £5.5million and £1.5million respectively to the cost of building the leisure facilities.
The pool was to have featured slides, flumes and wave machines and council chiefs hoped it would be a stepping stone to more serious swimming in the adjacent aquatics centre, which will have two Olympic-sized pools. But Newham has mothballed the cash and frozen plans to commission architects' drawings because it fears that the majority of the funding from private developers may not materialise.
Changes to the pool plans come after it emerged last week that the legacy plans for the Olympic media centre have been drastically reduced.
With the pool, much of the estimated cost £26 million for the leisure facility and £14 million for the fitness centre was to have come from the private developers of a residential and retail scheme in the park.
But council chiefs are concerned that this "section 106" cash a developers' contribution as part of planning consent may go instead towards a number of diverse projects such as a new bridge or school to convert the park after the Games.
Latest designs for the leisure facility came from a feasibility study of "Legacy Plus" options completed by the Olympic Delivery Authority six months ago. The leisure pool would have been linked to the aquatics centre with a shared entrance and changing areas.
Originally, the scheme was to have been housed within the aquatics centre site at a cost of up to £10 million. But this was squeezed out when a cost review by the ODA scaled back the site of the aquatics centre. The aquatics centre itself will not be entirely for the elite as booms and moveable floors will be added after 2012 for nursery use.
Paul Brickell, Newham's executive member for the Olympics, said: "We were not keen to commit the money and order the designs because we can't be sure the extra funds will be forthcoming. The problem is that nobody knows how much it will cost to decommission the Olympic venues and turn the area into a park after the Games."
Reader views (24)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
it good news free swimming for every one in 2012 next olympic game 2012 at the london
anthony
- Anthony Deponte, whitehaven cumbria
Insane! For this amount of money we could build dozens of swimming pools around the country, not just one!
- Ken Joralemon, london, UK
I need counselling as I hate organised sports. I see that some Lords are making a packet though! It cannot be all about money folks!
- Frederick, London, UK
I too agree with Mike - Olympics for Olympia (or, at least, splendid Athens). It genuinely belongs there, every time - and let the 'sports'-obsessed seek their own glory with their own earnings, not at my compulsory expense.
- Steve, SW18
Why do these facilities cost such an enormous sum these days? I learnt to swim in an unheated open air pool which I'm sure didn't cost anywhere near a million pounds.
- Fred, Horsham
Leave all the land for wildlife. Who wants more people doing more things everywhere? Aren't there enough specimens of the human species everywhere already?
- Judith C, London, UK
Why not pay a fraction of the cost of the Olympics to Greece, for a stadium that is permanent.
Enough of trying to score political points !
If the Sport is the thing, then let's be sensible.
- Cap, London
By the time the Olympics arrive to London, we will be a nation of obese people because this government has consistently failed to invest properly in sports facilities. More money will end up being spent on the NHS to pay for the obese.
- Kea Thomas, Finsbury Park
Andy Burnham is apparently pledging to spend £30 million on 225 "competition managers" to increase competitive sports in schools, but not of course to increase facilities there.
What sense does it make to "save" £40 million on a genuine Olympic benefit like a decent swimming pool, whilst frittering away the same kind of money on yet another layer of expensive management?
- Sally Wainman, Ipswich
We do desperately need decent athletics and swimming/diving facilities in London, and the Olympics is /was a golden opportunity for this to happen. London has had no investement in sports infrastructure in over 50 years!
But, it going to cost too much and deliver too little.
My sport Diving, will have lost 4 more public facilities between use getting the games nad building the aquatics centre. How much public access for 'fun' will there be to the diving pool?? NONE! It will be avasilable for expensive lessons and elite training only. The rest of the 8 million people in London?? well they don't count, they only pay for it!
The London assembly have recently reviewed the availability of swimming and diving facilities in London., 24 boroughs have no diving at all. Great legacy.......
- John Whitby, Peterborough, Cambs
I agree with Mike 100%
- Ray Savory, Dorchester Dorset
Were any members of the paying public asked whether we should have the Games in the country? It was a purely political decision, so let the overpaid politicos pay for it out of their inflated salaries and unjustified expenses.
- L.Taubler, London / UK
I am thrilled.
- Marph, London
So will Rebecca Adlington be able to go for another 2 golds?
Mr Phelps might as well stick with the 11 golds he has as 2016 will be too long for him age wise.
What a farce and how stupid wiil we look to the ourside world!
I heard we've messed up our chances of getting the Football World cup in 2018 somehow.
- Jim, St Albans
Labour are trying to bankrupt the country. We have to live with this irresponsible spending for the rest of our lives while some athletes poses with a gold medal which cost the the tax payer millions. Is it really worth it? Look at Montreal still paying the debt 32 years later.
- Jane, Surrey
..but the financial pressures aren't enough to stop building a monument to Zaha Hadid.It's a question of priorities, and the needs of British people come right at the bottom of the list when the quango class get the chequebooks out to spend our money.Funny how they seem to know exactly how much they need to build the aquatics centre, and that the money's there to spend.
Last week the nearby Borough of Redbridge closed the doors without prior warning on its second-last public pool. That's the kind of thing that's happening in the real world.
Four years to go, and the promises are being broken without shame
- Mdj, Leyton, e10 london
Can we save face and so no we cannot do anymore and let somebody else with a better track record and facilities have a go?
We should be looking forward to what our athletes could do after the excellent total of medals in 2012 but its all about money for the VIPs
- Sam, London
Such waste we cannot afford, for what? To infuriate commuting Londoners during the 'Games' and, make the UK a laughing stock in front of a world audience for three weeks! The fact that the games are coming to London after the spectacular event staged by Beijing will only confirm the rise of the east and, the decline of the west, with the UK leading the pack of western nations,on that downward spiral! Perhaps it is a lesson that needs to be learnt, as, our notion of being something we are not, will be very cruelly exposed!
- Kevin Sullivan, Roehampton, London.
It is time this country realised that we cannot afford these Olympics - tell the Olympic committee that we have run out of cash and tell them to bring the fantastic facilities in Athens out of mothballs and make that the Centre for European Excellence for Sport and make all EU countries pay something towards the upkeep and make it the permanent home for the Olympics in Europe - we have learn to live within our Budget and that means we have stop trying to keep up with Joneses ....
- Mike, Chipping Norton, England
As mentioned in the past, why not relocate the Olympic swimming pool to a pre-existing site ie Wembley at a fraction of the cost.
- Edwin Sheppard, Pinner UK
I bet the athletes and general public from overseas as really laughing at us!
- Mark, Watford
wise words Georgie - it's more of a poison chalice than winning Eurovision. These will be the 'Shoestring Games' where the only competitors facility built in time will be the sandpit for the triple jump.
- Squiz, Islington
So the Olympic village needs a taxpayers' handout, and now the swimming baths is being downgraded. What exactly are we getting for the £9.4bn?
- Nobby Clark, Perth, Scotland
We should never have "won" these Olympics here. The country has no more money after 10years of Nu Labor...
- Georgie, Islington, London
