What the new leisure centre will provide.

What does the new facility offer for families and young children

Meeting the needs families and young children has been a driving principle behind the project.  

Pool facilities

The new King Alfred will have a dedicated leisure water area incorporating a host of water features such as interactive play, a slide or small enclosed flume along with jets/fountains aimed at younger children, providing them with an engaging space to have fun and gain water confidence. 

The teaching pool will feature a movable floor which will give the operator flexibility in offering a range of different activities, including shallow water sessions for young children.  

The operator will also have the opportunity to use inflatables in the larger main pool, to create another exciting and fun environment for young children. 

The new pools will have a modern state of the art heating and filtration system. This will enable the separate pools to be better controlled providing warmer water for infants and cooler water for swimmers. It also means that if there is a closure due to contamination in the leisure/teaching pool, the main pool will still remain open – an improvement on the current set up where one issue closes all the pools.  

Soft play facilities

The new facility will also feature an exciting interactive soft play area for young children over 4 levels, which is being developed with some of the country’s leading soft play specialists.  

For older children

For slightly older children, the new six court sports hall will provide opportunities for roller sports, dry side inflatables, kids birthday parties and activities like 5-a-side football, 3x3 basketball and volleyball. 

Taken together, these features represent a much more compelling and attractive offer for young families. The exact specification of the leisure water is being developed with specialist suppliers, and the council will look to provide more information in the coming weeks. 

Images shown are an example of the type of facilities that will be available.

Image of two children on rope bridge in indoor soft play

Leisure water activity area with small slide

changing area with lockers, benches and hairdryers

Image Credit – BAM Construction

What are the changing arrangements at the new facility?

Dry-side

For the ‘dry-side’ facilities (gym, studios, sports hall) the design features separate male and female changing areas. The design also incorporates two gender neutral individual shower and changing units. 

Wet-side

For the ‘wet-side’ facilities (the swimming pool) the design features a changing village, which is typical of most modern sports centres and which replicates arrangements in the current King Alfred Leisure Centre. The changing village accommodates all genders and features individual private cubicles to enable private changing for all. Changing villages have become popular in part to enable parents to bring children of either gender into the same changing space, where the family can change together in a private cubicle. That would be more difficult with separate male / female changing. The changing village also features group changing areas. 

The proposed designs are fully compliant with current guidance and regulations, and will require appropriate management by the operator of the facility in accordance with the current guidance at the point of operation. The operator for the facility will be determined following a procurement exercise. 

Images are shown as an example only.