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If you’re looking for a new reason to take a quick trip (and dip) to the shimmering seaside of Brighton and Hove, here’s one: the local council has announced plans to replace the city’s King Alfred Leisure Centre with a shiny new building.
The new seaside leisure centre would replace the current 1939 structure on Kingsway to make room for a bigger, better gym, leisure pools, family-friendly zones and an indoor café with coastal views (for when hunger strikes after a day of swimming).
Plans were originally announced by the council in 2024, but with a planning application officially submitted, plant and landscaping prep underway and new imagery making waves online, it’s looking like the vision is finally becoming a reality. If everything gets approved, this £65 million centre and its bright and shining piscines could be ready to dive into by 2028.
However, some residents are a bit skeptical about the plans and would prefer the old leisure centre to be retrofitted. Heritage campaigner Laura King told BBC News: ‘[The current centre] was built as a flagship facility with a rooftop restaurant and 480 spaces underground. So if we retrofit it, it will be a flagship leisure centre again. But actually, we’re exchanging it for a shoebox in order to build tower blocks around it.’
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