Plug pulled on Crewe’s Flag Lane Baths revamp

With costs increasing by £2m, the Towns Fund project was facing an uphill battle to deliver within the government programme’s deadline of March 2026.

Charity Always Ahead had hoped to transform the Art Deco public swimming baths into a community centre with an auditorium, a community grocery club, a heritage gallery, workspaces, outdoor sports area, and a restaurant. Baily Garner had led on the designs, with LDA Design in charge of the outdoor spaces.

Flag Lane Baths in Crewe had been empty since 2016 and Always Ahead’s plans to revitalise it had secured government support to the line of £3.9m from the Towns Fund. Subsequently, planning permission for the revamp was approved in 2022.

Since then, however, the project has suffered cost increases as the condition of the building’s structure proved problematic. This caused delays and an increased price tag of £5.9m. Now, the Crewe Town Board, which is in charge of the Towns Fund schemes in Crewe, has pulled its support for the project.

This leaves Cheshire East Council to look for permission to reallocate the £3.3m remaining from the £3.9m allocated by government. The council’s economy and growth committee will vote Wednesday if it should pursue this course of action.

Reallocating the funds also enables the council to demolish the baths and, in their place, build an alternative provision school for up to 75 students.

This would be enabled through a bit of money magic. Cheshire East Council would move £1.35m of government funding for the baths to another Towns Fund scheme: the Crewe Youth Zone on Oak Street.

This would allow the council to take £1.35m of its own money for the youth zone and give that to the proposed school. Thus, the government funds would stay with the Towns Fund programme and not directly go towards a new scheme.

The Crewe Youth Zone would not be the only beneficiary of the reallocated funds from the baths. A future Youth Zone off Mirion Street would receive £458,000.

Tweaks to the public realm for a history centre would get £200,000 – as would the council’s pocket parks programme. The Cumberland Arena project would get £501,000 to help it deliver changing rooms and shower facilities.

The Mill Street Corridor project – a proposed cyclist and pedestrian route – would also get £407,600 to go towards a needed design revision.

“While we are of course disappointed that the plans by the Always Ahead charity cannot be realised, we are pleased to have begun positive discussions with the Department for Education and an academy trust about plans for a new alternative provision school instead,” said Cllr Michael Gorman, deputy leader of Cheshire East and chair of the economy and growth committee.

“We understand that the former Flag Lane Baths is their preferred location for a school of this type, especially given the close proximity it will have to ‘The Dome’, which will be built on the former Oak Street car park and will be staffed by highly-skilled youth workers.”

Gorman added that the council will look into keeping the façade of the former baths as part of the development.

Reallocating the funds and turning the Flag Lane Baths site into a school also has the green light from Always Ahead, with leader David Edwards saying that the group was “supportive of the proposals that have been put forward”.