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The 12,800 sqm, three-storey facility, being built for the London Borough Of Greenwich at  a cost of £115m, is set to become one of the country’s largest urban leisure centres when it opens in 2025.

Due to the confined nature of the site, Morgan Sindall is delivering a stacked solution, with sports hall, gym and cardio rooms on the upper floor, using anti-vibration steelwork. This is similar in design to the Britannia Leisure Centre in Hackney, which Morgan Sindall completed in 2022. 

Facilities in Woolwich will include three swimming pools, wet changing facilities, spa and relaxation areas, two spin studios, two gyms, a five-a-side 3G pitch, multi-use sports hall, two squash courts and indoor cricket facilities. 

The centre will also have community spaces, along with a café, kitchen, creche and soft play area as well as two studios that will be linked to the neighbouring (and recently refurbished) Tramshed Theatre.

The rooftop will have a planted green roof and 1,700 sqm of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. The building is targeting a BREEAM Outstanding rating, which will make it only the second leisure centre in the country of this standard. 

Morgan Sindall has been working with the council on the project for nearly three years already, having been handed a pre-construction services contract in July 2020 under the first stage of a two-stage design and build contract, procured through the Southern Construction Framework.

Costs escalated over that time with building inflation with some subcontractor packages rose by 30%. It was nearly £18m over the council’s £103.6m budget.

The team found ways to save £6m with ‘value engineering’ – £960,000 on revising the façade design and finish, £348,000 on a substitute wall and ceiling finish and £903,000 on an alternative dry walling solution. But when the council  signed off the project earlier this year, it was still £11.8m over the £103.6m budget. It decided to go ahead anyway and find the money.

Morgan Sindall is working alongside FaulknerBrowns Architects, Buro Happold Engineers, Hadron Consulting, property and construction consultants Gleeds and Van Zyl & de Villiers on the project.