East Suffolk Council

Felixstowe Leisure Centre

We have been given the go ahead to bring a new multi-million state-of-the-art leisure facility to Felixstowe.

At East Suffolk Council’s Full Cabinet Meeting, held on 3 September 2019, it was agreed that a new leisure centre for Felixstowe would get the go ahead to bring a single destination facility to the town, which will service the community and also attract people from further afield.

Cllr Letitia Smith, Cabinet Member for Communities, Leisure and Tourism said:

“We are delighted that we can now go ahead with our plans to bring state-of-the-art leisure facilities to Felixstowe.

When our leisure centres were first built, they gave our communities a great sense of pride. However, they are now ageing and need updating to today’s and future standards, so that they have the best facilities available and become the destination of choice.

Therefore, we will now focus on a range of options to provide Felixstowe with a sustainable facility that local residents can be proud of and that provides a destination focus for tourism opportunities in the town.”

The existing Felixstowe Leisure Centre was built in 1985 and Brackenbury Leisure Centre, also in Felixstowe, operated by the Council from the 1990s. Both facilities would need a significant amount of money spent on them to maintain their current offer.

An initial consultation was undertaken in 2018 with a number of key stakeholders. It investigated where the best place to site a new leisure centre would be, including the existing Felixstowe Leisure site, the Brackenbury site and also new sites in the northern area of the town.

Next steps

• The Council pursues the delivery of a new leisure facility in north Felixstowe
• Council officers will report back to Cabinet when the RIBA stage – design work is complete, including a full build programme for the works and the facilities that will be included within the new ‘destination’ facility
• Council officers will also bring to Cabinet a Business Plan for a new ‘destination’ leisure centre in Felixstowe to support the project
• An East Suffolk Built Facilities and Playing Pitch Strategy will be produced following updating of the current one. This will also support the producing of a new East Suffolk Leisure Strategy

More information will be published on site as it becomes available.