Campaigners Angry About New Gurnell Leisure Centre Plan

Say any scheme to build on Metropolitan Open Land doomed to failure

An aerial view of the Gurnell site. Picture: Ealing Council

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February 16, 2023

Ealing Council has revealed details of its initial plans to rebuild the Gurnell Leisure Centre which envisages a new 50 metre-swimming pool and fitness studio along with 200-300 flats in buildings up to ten-storeys high.

The existing facilities were closed at the start of the first Covid-19 lockdown and the council decided that it could not reopen because the building, constructed in the seventies, was structurally unsafe.

The council intends that, if the outline plans are approved, more detailed designs will be drawn up with the expectation that they would be submitted for approval before the end of the year.

An earlier proposal in which it was hoped to partly fund the rebuilding of the centre with the construction of flats on the site was rejected by the council’s planning committee due to the encroachment on Metropolitan Open Land and the height of the residential towers.

The council says that since that time it has continued to consult with local residents and residents’ group to try to ensure that the next proposal meets the needs of the community. A survey of local people was held in June 2022.

The Gurnell Community Sounding Board was formed with members including local ward councillors as well as the Brent River & Canal Society, Gurnell Grove Residents’ Association, Ealing Matters, Draytons Community Association, Pitshanger Community Association, Save Gurnell and Stop the Towers.

The board has met four times with developers and council officers since last May and taken part in a ‘vision workshop’ about the scheme.

At the same time the council appointed architects Mikhail Riches and GT3 to consider options for the future of the centre, which included a feasibility study. The study resulted in five options for the brief for the replacement leisure centre, at a range of sizes and costs.

The council says that it has adopted a ‘retrofit-first’ approach for environmental reasons, but that extensive feasibility work has established that a new building would have a less impactful carbon footprint than attempting to maintain the energy inefficient existing building.

It has also concluded that the need to provide leisure facilities must be balanced by the current pressures on the council budget and that, therefore the cost of the centre must be offset by the development of new flats on the site. 35% of these would be classed as affordable. Even so, additional council borrowing would be needed to fund the development.

The current preferred initial option would cost an estimated £45 million and would incorporate the land where the existing centre and its car park sit. The plans for the site which were rejected in 2021 included a 17-storey tower, but in this, the tallest building will be up to a maximum of ten storeys, with somewhere in the region of 200 to 300 flats in total.

Should the Cabinet give the green light to these initial plans there would be £2.5m given to fund further planning activity, as well as to carry out the demolition of the existing leisure centre building.

According to the Save Gurnell campaign group, some members of the Sounding Board have expressed disappointment that they have only belatedly been allowed to see the details of the proposals that are to be put to the Cabinet.

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the chair of the Gurnell Community Sounding Board, has submitted a report to the council which concluded that the existing building could not be refurbished but other members of the board are saying that it does not accurately reflect their views. They are submitting their own report which they are asking to be included with the Cabinet papers for the agenda of a meeting on 22 February when the new plans will be discussed.

One member of the Board said, “We entered into this process in good faith and in the belief that the promise made by Cllr Peter Mason in May 2021 that ‘from now on communities will be in the driving seat when it comes to regeneration in Ealing’ was sincere. All the community groups on the Sounding Board have raised concerns about the plans we have been shown to date. So we are very disappointed that we have not seen the Council officer’s report and recommendations to Cabinet or had the opportunity to comment on them before the meeting. We will only know exactly what is being recommended around 15 February when the agenda and meeting papers will be made public.

“What we can say is that the Council has dismissed the idea of refurbishment, and are looking at knocking down and re-building the leisure centre. The cost of their high-spec preferred design is around £40 million. This is substantially more than the Council has available for the project, so they want to fill the funding gap by building up to 500 housing units on the site as well. We have seen two different options for doing this, one building everything on the existing site and car park, and another that would re-locate the leisure centre to Long Field Meadow (a Grade II Site of Importance for Nature Conservation next to Stockdove Way) with the housing spanning not only the current car park, but also the footprint of the current leisure centre.

“The Council appears to have rejected the option for a ‘like for like’ replacement, which would cost around £28 million and might make the need for housing on the site redundant as they already have £12 million ringfenced for the project.”

The Sounding Board member added, ‘The reason the planning committee rejected the last application was because the leisure centre sits on Metropolitan Open Land (MOL), which has the same level of protection as the Green Belt. According to national and London planning policy, that development was not only inappropriate, but also harmful to the MOL due to its scale, massing and design. It seems to us a huge waste of time and money to go through the process for a second time with proposals that have all the same problems. We are encouraging people to contact their Ward Councillors to protest.”

Refurbishment of existing facilities has been ruled out. Picture: Save Gurnell

Councillor Peter Mason, leader of Ealing Council said, “Ealing’s young people, families and future athletes deserve a world-class modern swimming and leisure centre, and we remain committed to delivering a new Gurnell where residents can stay fit and healthy, both mentally and physically.

“The previous proposals for Gurnell simply did not work, and were not good enough for Ealing. Since we took the decision to start from scratch, we’ve heard a broad range of opinions on Gurnell, both from last year’s big public engagement and from establishing the Gurnell Community Sounding Board. We are clear that there is a growing consensus that the future of the site has to include a brand new, state-of-the-art leisure facility with a 50m swimming pool, but without an extra rise in council tax to pay off the debt and high interest rates of unnecessary borrowing.

“So we’re doing exactly what most residents who expressed their view suggested - we are proposing a mixed model where some of the cost of building a new centre is funded by also building new homes to either rent or sell at the site. As with all new housing developments in the borough, we will ensure that the scheme delivers at least 35% affordable homes, and every effort will be made to ensure the natural environment is protected and local biodiversity is retained and improved.

“We know that not everyone is going to agree. But we also know that we are all going to need to make some compromises if we are going to get the doors of a new Gurnell open soon. The conversation does not stop here. We are at a very early stage and no final decisions have been made about the design of the scheme, and as an open, inclusive and transparent council, we will continue to work with local residents and the Community Sounding Board on the detail of the proposals.”

Councillor Shital Manro, the council’s lead member for good growth, said, “Brexit, the cost-of-living crisis, and rocketing interest rates have all made this project more challenging, but we are determined to deliver the outstanding facilities that residents have told us they want to see at Gurnell.

“An independent assessor found that the cost of fully refurbishing the existing building to extend its life would run into the region of £18 million. With no means of offsetting the cost, that would be a huge amount of money to find after years of austerity which have seen the government cut our budget by 64% since 2010. With the agreement of the Community Sounding Board that the old building must go, we can now focus on building a new centre instead.

“We want to ensure that residents have a say in big local decisions like this and a loud voice in shaping the future of their communities. We will continue to work with them to deliver a new leisure centre that we can all be proud of.”

Dave Heathcock, head coach at Ealing Swimming Club said, “Ealing Swimming Club agrees with the conclusion that the best option for the future of the Gurnell Leisure Centre is demolition, and we are looking forward to working with Ealing Council to develop plans for a new, state-of-the-art leisure centre. Ensuring that the future of leisure from participation to Olympian within the borough will be a positive and inclusive one”.

All decisions are subject to council cabinet approval at the next meeting on 22 February.