Salford eyes contractor for £15m Pendleton leisure centre 

GT3 Architects has been appointed to design the facility on Loganberry Avenue opposite Salford Shopping Centre, and a construction firm is to be appointed in March. 

The architecture studio has been awarded a £225,000, seven-month contract by Salford City Council to draw up detailed proposals for the Pendleton project with a view to submitting a planning application this summer. 

Salford City Council is to select a lead contractor from the Procure Partnership North West Framework to construct the leisure centre.

The firms that make up the framework are Kier, Morgan Sindall Construction, Wates, BAM Construction, Willmott Dixon, Galliford Try, Interserve, and Laing O’Rourke. 

In the meantime, the council is preparing an application for up to £6m from government agency Sport England to part-fund the scheme.

Under the plans, the new sports centre would feature artificial football pitches, a gym, and other community uses as well as a swimming pool and 12 sports courts. 

Plans for a leisure centre in Pendleton have been in the pipeline since 2016 when the council published its Indoor Sport & Leisure Facilities Assessment Report. 

The report, which outlined a £30m plan to improve the local authority’s sports centres, proposed closing down the borough’s Clarendon and Ordsall facilities, replacing them with a new £15m leisure centre in Pendleton.

The new facility is expected to generate an additional £380,000 in revenue for the council every year, according to the report.

In addition to the Pendleton facility, the council’s indoor sports plan put forward outline proposals for a £12m facility to serve Swinton and Pendlebury, while centres in Worsley, Eccles and Broughton would be upgraded. #

GT3 Architects has a track record of designing similar schemes such as the £21.5m Sands Centre in Carlisle.