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29
Apr
More public money to be pumped into Ripon leisure centre
Another six-figure sum is to be spent on Ripon leisure centre.
North Yorkshire Council has been allocated £832,000 from the government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
It is to spend £270,000 of this on the sinkhole-prone leisure centre on Dallamires Lane. The other £562,000 will go towards schemes in Whitby, Scarborough and Catterick.
The funds will be spent refurbishing the leisure centre, which is formally known as Active North Yorkshire Ripon – The Jack Laugher Centre.
The pool has been open since 2022 but members had to use a temporary gym in the car park until February this year while work to stabilise the site was carried out following the discovery of a sinkhole. Group fitness classes continue to be held off site at Hugh Ripley Hall.
A council spokesperson said the £270,000 would be used to part-fund “extensive structural works that are currently being undertaken to stabilise the site and enable the leisure centre to reopen fully for customers”.
They added the work, which is already underway, involves the refurbishment of the ground floor leisure centre space and services including the sports hall, studios, changing rooms and the external landscaping.
Work is due to be completed “this summer”.
The spokesperson said:
The £270,000 doesn’t relate to any one specific item of work but is part of the wider work being undertaken on the leisure side of the complex which opened in the mid 1990s, not on the swimming pool. The gym partially reopened in February, however further works are required to the ground floor.
The spokesperson said refurbishment “meets the criteria for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund” because the refurbishment would make “a significant contribution to the aims of the programme in North Yorkshire”, which include developing new cultural and leisure facilities, supporting pride of place in local areas and promoting health and wellbeing.
Some 3,000 tonnes of grout have been pumped into the leisure centre site at a cost of £3.5 million following the discovery of a sinkhole.
It has taken the cost of the project, which was initially announced as a 17-month, £10.2 million contract in 2019, to beyond £20 million.
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