The new pool will accommodate the city’s growing population / Peterborough City Council
Peterborough City Council is progressing plans for a new £43m (US$58.6m) development which will form part of a wider Sports Quarter for the city.
The council has submitted a planning application for the scheme and is seeking to use an anticipated £20m (US$27.2m) grant from the UK government’s Growth Mission Fund towards its delivery.
The centre will feature an eight-lane, 25 metre swimming pool, a four-lane, 20m activity pool with a moveable floor, poolside and balcony spectator seating, a 150-station fitness suite and studios.
Other facilities will include health and wellbeing rooms, community and health spaces, a café and family play facilities.
Locals had lobbied for a 50 metre pool, but planners ultimately decided on the smaller footprint.
Alliance Leisure will undertake early works and the main construction programme.
The council is targeting site clearance from November 2026, with main construction beginning in early 2027 and completion scheduled for autumn 2028.
The development budget has risen from an earlier £37.1m to around £43m, including a 7 per cent contingency. The council said the increase reflected additional highways works and higher costs for steel, timber, mechanical and electrical equipment and insulation.
The new facility is intended to replace Peterborough’s Regional Pool and Fitness Centre, which was decommissioned after structural and maintenance problems meant it had reached the end of its operational life.
Council feasibility work also found the city’s existing public swimming stock was already operating at capacity, with population growth expected to increase demand further.
Councillor Zameer Ali, Peterborough City Council’s cabinet member for communities and public safety, said: “Our residents deserve to have access to high-quality swimming facilities, and this new leisure centre will give them a modern, accessible place to swim, exercise and enjoy activities with family and friends, while supporting better health and wellbeing across the city.”
He added that the project “cannot come soon enough”, with the council keen to begin site clearance in November ahead of main construction starting early in 2027.
Morgan Stevenson, from City of Peterborough Swimming Club, has also backed the project, saying the club is “fully committed to working in partnership with the wider group to help deliver the modern, inclusive aquatic facility that Peterborough truly deserves.”
He said the ambition was to create a venue capable of supporting health, wellbeing and community access, while also developing future generations of swimmers and helping put Peterborough on the national sporting map.