Decision - The King Alfred Leisure Centre Regeneration Project

This paper seeks Cabinet agreement to progress the King Alfred Regeneration project from its current concept design stage (Royal Institute of British Architects Plan of Work Stage 2 or RIBA 2) through to spatial coordination and technical design (RIBA stage 3 and 4) including submission of the planning application.

That Cabinet: 1) Agrees that the design team progress further the design proposals presented at appendix 1 and delegates authority to Corporate Director, City Operations in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Sports, Recreation & Libraries to proceed with submission of a planning application based on those designs. 2) Approves the indicative capital budget for the project of up to £65 million to be included in the Medium-Term Capital Investment Programme to be funded from a combination of capital receipts, government grants and council borrowing. 3) Approves an allocation of a further £2.3 million of these resources, in addition to the £2.7million agreed at July 2024 cabinet, for professional fees, surveys, and investigations relating to the development of the design proposals through RIBA Stage 3 (including submission of a planning application), and RIBA Stage 4 with enabling works. 4) Approves the demolition of redundant parts of the site (appendix 5) between the current facility and the car park so that the enabling works for the new facility and regenerated public realm can come forward.

The brief sets sustainability requirements for the King Alfred Leisure Centre Regeneration Project, including strict upfront-carbon limits, whole-life carbon assessment and low-carbon design. It also requires circular-economy practices, reuse of materials, sustainable drainage and investigation of whether existing structural elements can be retained.