Marple Leisure and Community Hub Update, January 2022

The team will look to bring forward a scheme for a leisure and community hub, which would replace Marple Pool and provide updated leisure and community facilities for the local area. This builds on the community and stakeholder engagement work which was undertaken in March and December 2020.

Since the last update in November 2021, the council has received verbal feedback on our application to the Government’s Levelling Up Fund which was submitted in June 2021 and was largely based on plans developed through the public engagement process and amended in line with specific concerns about access and parking, proximity to neighbouring residential properties and protection of woodland in the park.

The feedback indicated that the scheme submitted demonstrated a strong strategic fit, good value for money and met local priorities and challenges well.

Unfortunately the Levelling Up Fund was extremely competitive, and our bid was not successful on this occasion. The feedback has encouraged us to continue developing a scheme incorporating a range of leisure, community and health provision in readiness for a potential further round of Levelling Up Fund or similar Government funding schemes. We are continuing dialogue with a range of local partners to progress this project.

In parallel with developing a larger scheme, development continues on a core scheme focusing on pool, leisure and library offer and we have assembled the professional team required to bring this work to a pre-planning stage. We aim to have completed this work by the end of April and will issue further updates as progress is made and we have a developed scheme ready for public engagement and an agreed funding strategy.