June date set for opening of £33.9m leisure centre in Leighton Buzzard

The building is located north of Clipstone Brook and will be accessed via Briggington Way, to the east of the town centre.

Facilities include an eight-lane swimming pool, with a learner pool, a 150-station gym. two squash courts, and two multi-use studios for various exercise classes and activities, according to Central Bedfordshire Council’s projects and fundraising manager (leisure) Kim Owens.

Other features are three treatment rooms for community health use or to be hired out, changing rooms for the eventual sports pitches, a play and multi-use games area (MUGA), and a flexible community room with a kitchenette, which could be used for meetings or parties, she told a CBC Leighton-Linslade partnership committee meeting.

“The building is due to be completed in mid-June and our expected opening date is Saturday, 27th,” she said. “There’s also public art being installed, including a teardrop artwork in the cafe plaza, near the front entrance.

“Cedars Upper School is maintaining the sports hall and squash courts associated with Tiddenfoot Leisure Centre. Bookings for these were transferred in January through the school’s third party operator Active8.

“Tiddenfoot is due to close on Friday 26th June, with the new centre opening the next day to ensure there’s no loss of provision in the town.”

Independent Leighton Linslade West councillor Victoria Harvey said: “If you want to go to the gym in the evening, it’s not easily accessible from large parts of the town.

“It seems to be quite a car-reliant leisure centre, so I’m unsure how that fits in with the strategic objective on climate change. Is there any hope of more funding to offer extra buses for this?”

Ms Owens replied: “We’ve been talking with Centrebus Limited in an attempt to improve the provision and access by bus. Nothing has been formalised yet.”

Liberal Democrat Leighton Linslade South councillor Chris Leaman, who chairs the committee, said: “As well as Centrebus, there are also potentially Arriva and Red Rose Travel to consider as operators.

“People from nearby villages might want to access the leisure centre. I welcome the work with Centrebus, but there are others.”

Liberal Democrat Leighton Linslade South councillor Shaun Roberts acknowledged the location is “frustrating”, saying: “With the sheer size of these facilities, it’s hard to put it somewhere in the middle of Leighton Buzzard.

“The current leisure centre isn’t in a brilliant location for much of the town either.”

Ms Owens added: “This was the only location where we could put a new leisure centre without buying a piece of land and pricing it all out.

“Tiddenfoot wasn’t big enough to expand and basically was end of life, so you were faced with the possibility of having no leisure centre.

“This isn’t ideal for some of the population. We’ll work hard around the transport links and we’re doing what we can to make it as accessible as possible.”