Mountbatten Centre redevelopment project

Re-development update

Parkwood Community Leisure are managing the Mountbatten Centre on behalf of Broadwater Leisure as part of a 25 year contract with Portsmouth City Council. Broadwater Leisure are responsible for the £20 million redevelopment of the centre. Work started on site on Monday 7th January 2008 and is due to be completed by the Summer of 2009.

The existing facilities will remain open during the building work. There will be some disruption, but this will be kept to a minimum.

Parkwood Community Leisure are also be responsible for the management of ten other council-owned leisure sites in Portsmouth. The company have been set targets to get residents involved in leisure activities and will also be working to achieve national benchmarking and quality standards.

Progress

After nine months of construction work the Mountbatten Centre project is still going well despite the lack of a summer this year. The building has seen great progress over the last few months and is now almost weather tight with the roof, walls and most of the glazing in place. This allows the fit out of the inside to progress and the major internal plant and machinery is currently being installed that will service the pool and other areas of the new development. The glazing to the North elevation is nearly complete and this demonstrates the amazing views that customers will enjoy from health and fitness suites looking out across the harbour to Portchester Castle and Portsdown Hill. The fitness suite will be home to 150 exercise stations and artists impressions of how this will look are shown above. The smaller learner pool has been installed and the works on the main pool should continue either side of Christmas and be finished early in the New Year. Work will then progress on the internal rooms to include all the final details and finishes to meet the target of the pool opening in Spring 2009. As part of the overall project, refurbishment works to the existing facilities have been undertaken and the main sports hall has seen a new semi sprung floor installed and the lighting has been upgraded. Externally the athletics and cycling tracks have been completely resurfaced to provide much improved facilities for users to enjoy. It is hoped that all these works together with the new pool will help attract major sports events to the centre once everything has been completed.

Topping Out Ceremony

Portsmouth marked the Beijing Olympics with a topping out ceremony at the new development site of the Mountbatten Centre.

Councillor Terry Hall, Cabinet member for Culture and Leisure, said: "In the middle of the excitment about the Beijing Olympics, it is great to feel Portsmouth is preparing to play a part in the next Olympic Games in 2012. The topping out ceremony gave us a chance to mark the completion of major elements of the exterior of the new centre, which should be finished on schedule next year."

"The new Mountbatten Centre will provide fantastic sports facilities for the people of Portsmouth, encourage everyone to get active in the run up to the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games and help to bring visitors to the city in 2012 and beyond."

The Lord Mayor of Portsmouth, Councillor Richard Jensen attended the ceremony on Wednesday 13th August along with representatives from Sport England, the building contractors, Kier, and Parkwood Community Leisure, the group developing and running the new facilities.

Works

The new 50-metre swimming pool and health and fitness facilities will be built to the west of the Mountbatten Centre's main building, on part of the existing car park. New car parking capacity will be created on both the west and east side of the centre to accommodate the increased usage. Parkwood Community Leisure have also produced a Travel Plan to encourage more users to take Public Transport and other 'green' methods of transport.

The pool will include a submersible boom and a moveable floor to enable the pool to be set up in different configurations offering a variety of flexible programming opportunities. The pool will be able to offer a complete diverse range of swimming activity - from fun sessions to synchronised swimming, lane swimming to aquarobics.

However, 85% of the time the new eight-lane pool will be available for community use including schools, children and other learners. There will also be a 12.5m separate teaching pool.

2012

London 2012 have recognised the potential of the Mountbatten Centre and it will be included in the Pre-games training camp guide for the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games to be published in the summer of 2008. It is hoped that one or more overseas teams will base themselves at the Mountbatten Centre in the run up to the 2012 Games.

Further information

The first document below shows the proposed design concepts for the Mountbatten Centre Redevelopment.

The second document is a bulletin from Kier Southern who are building the new pool.

For more information or to join our mailing list, please e-mail mountbatten@portsmouthcc.gov.uk

Associated documents:

Proposed design concepts (0.26 MB)

Latest bulletin from Kier Southern who are building the new pool. (0.09 MB)

External Links

Parkwood Leisure website