The sorry state Aberdeen’s beleaguered Beach Leisure Centre was allowed to get into before its closure has finally been laid bare.
Council leisure operator Sport Aberdeen faced a £700,000 funding bow in April 2023, forcing bosses to pull the plug.
The P&J can now reveal quoted work for £16 million repairs wouldn’t even have allowed the charity to reopen the doors.
Sports chiefs think it would cost around triple that to allow people back into the Beach Leisure Centre once more.
Instead, it’s expected the flume-flanked building will be bulldozed at the cost of £500,000 by the end of spring.
Beach Leisure Centre closed after budget slashed
Bucksburn Swimming Pool was also closed as part of the 2023 budget cull, though red-faced local authority leaders were forced to backtrack on that after a court challenge.
Destined to reopen, Sport Aberdeen bosses have now cast doubt on the timeline, raising concerns it could take well into 2026.
And with the second phase of the multi-million-pound regeneration of Aberdeen beach on hold until the cash-strapped council can raise tens of millions of pounds, there have been fresh calls to look at reopening the Beach Leisure Centre too.
Calls to reprioritise the £80m replacement leisure centre at the beachfront have already failed.
At a recent meeting with Sport Aberdeen, Labour’s Sandra Macdonald voiced those concerns, as this second phase is to include a new leisure centre.
“My plea, as councillor for the beach area, is why can we not repurpose the Beach Leisure Centre?
“We hope the repurposing of Bucksburn Pool happens much more quickly than was in The Press and Journal recently.”
But even before council budget cuts forced the immediate closure of the Beach Leisure Centre, the pool was already drained as it was costing more than £1m a year to heat and run.
The gym in the centre was the only part still in operation before the axe fell.
‘The brutal facts: the Beach Leisure Centre was just done’
Sport Aberdeen chairman Tony Dawson explained the “brutal facts” about the rotting guts of the Beach Leisure Centre, which make reopening – even in the short term – impossible.
“The Beach Leisure Centre was just done unfortunately,” Mr Dawson told councillors recently.
“Sport Aberdeen paid for a condition survey and that showed that essential repairs were £16m – essential repairs that would not even allow us to reopen.
“To bring it up to standard, I think the estimate was around £50m.
“It was just not possible. The pipework underneath the floors was corroded and going to fail.
“The council officials went round the centre with us.
“Sport Aberdeen does not like closing any of our facilities. But in that case it was impossible to leave it open.”
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- Penny-pinching ‘uncertainty’ over new Beach Leisure Centre as replacement could hinge on Dons stadium plan
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