Officers of the City Council’s Regeneration Programme Unit commissioned the Planning for Real Unit to deliver a drop-in engagement session and a stakeholder Visioning Event to support their ongoing consultation about the future of the King Alfred Leisure Centre and the development of a new facility.

Drop in Engagement Session – 18^th April 2023:

The consultation event was held in the foyer space of the King Alfred Leisure Centre and ran from 8am until 8pm.   Consultation tables and easels were set up in 2 locations with Information Boards, provided by the City Council giving an update on the project, set up by the entrance doorway.

Consultation materials used were:

• Hopes and Concerns boards and blank “tops” and “pants” cards onto which participants could use to give us their views.
• Gender and age pin board.
• Marketing Monitoring board.
• A form which participants interested in attending the Visioning event could complete.

Just over 200 local residents, including children, participated in the consultation.

Visioning Event – 24^th May 2023

The visioning event was held at the King Alfred Leisure Centre and a follow up, drop-in session was held in the evening to provide instant feedback to people who couldn’t attend the morning session and to Centre users.  Between 45-50 people took part, many representing groups who use the Centre e.g. the swimming club; users of the Centre, and local residents.

The event represented a key part of the Council’s wider engagement programme for the project to replace the King Alfred Leisure Centre. Its key purpose was to involve stakeholders in helping to shape the vision for the new facility.  The event also provided an opportunity to share information about the proposed programme to build a new Centre, the practical and financial constraints within which the Council must work, and the results of the consultation undertaken so far.

Based on feedback from the drop in engagement event together with delegate’s own knowledge and experience, participants were asked to create visions for the new centre imagining how it would look and feel in ten years’ time . Follow-up tasks were to prioritise the emerging issues / ideas for the new centre to inform the next stages and to identify who might need to join a reference group to assist the Council in taking the project forward. The event concluded with a Q&A session.

February 2025: Latest news from Brighton & Hove City Council about this project ….

Next steps for the regeneration project

Now that Cabinet has decided on the preferred site for the new facility (part of the current King Alfred site), work is now progressing to the next stages of design and planning.

The first step in this process has been to appoint the professional team who will lead the design work.

The core professional team comprises:

• Alliance Leisure – appointed delivery partner for the UK Leisure Framework. Alliance will coordinate the work of the consultants and will support the Council in future engagement and communications activities for the project.
• GT3 Architects will lead the professional team in developing the design for the new facility.
• Engenuiti will complement GT3 as the civil and structural engineers for the project.
• Van Zyl & de Villiers will be the project’s building services and engineering consultancy.
• Hadron Consulting will complete the core team as the technical project manager.

We expect to have the design developed by the end of 2025, at which stage we’ll look to submit the full planning application.

Communications and engagement  

Since the current project was started in late summer 2022, we’ve been engaging closely with local residents about the King Alfred regeneration. As the project moves forward into the design and planning stages that will continue.

We’ll continue to use the project’s Reference Group as a channel to engage with the local community, as well as work closely with user groups and local sports clubs/hirers.

These designs will be shared with residents before submitting the full planning application.

 

« Top of the page