Tonbridge Bean

Angel Centre decision day: councillors to vote on whether Tonbridge’s new leisure centre gets built

Angel Centre Green Wall.

Full council meets on 20 October to decide whether to commit to construction. The borough says it can fund the £20.6m project without borrowing.

Councillors at Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council will vote on Tuesday 20 October on whether to take the new Angel Centre from the drawing board into construction, with work on site scheduled to begin on 19 November.

The full council meeting starts at 7.30pm. Members are being asked to agree that the council enters into a Development Management Agreement with Alliance Leisure, its development partner, to take the project to RIBA Stage 5, the manufacturing and construction phase. RIBA refers to the Royal Institute of British Architects’ plan of work. Stages 1 to 4, covering feasibility, concept, spatial coordination and technical design, are now complete.

The approval comes with a condition. It depends on two items on the private part of the agenda: the service fee payable by the Tonbridge and Malling Leisure Trust and changes to the council’s Management Agreement with the Trust. The council says these are being dealt with in private because they involve financial and business information.

The council’s report says the existing Angel Centre is 45 years old and “no longer fit for purpose”. It lists boilers and ventilation systems that need replacing outright, a sports hall floor at the end of its life, deteriorating drains causing regular blockages, and a roof that combines ageing felt with asbestos-containing tiles. It also says there is no “do nothing” option, because the building needs major spending just to keep running.

The project budget now stands at £20.618m, down from an indicative £22.95m at the first design stage. Officers expect the final cost to be around £20.5m if a Living Wall planned for the south-east of the building is removed. That wall would cost £157,000 to install and roughly £7,000 to £8,000 a year to maintain, excluding VAT. Cabinet backed removing it on 6 October, subject to feasibility work, and the planning and biodiversity implications are still being reviewed.

The council says it has found the money without taking on debt. The funding comes from:

£14.4m from the Tonbridge Town Centre Reserve, £1m from the Leisure Trust and £1.1m from the Revenue Reserve for Capital Schemes, making £16.5m available now. A further £3.5m is already allowed for in the 2027/28 budget, bringing the total to £20m. The last £0.5m would come from extra investment income and a top-up to the reserve in 2027/28. Part of that top-up comes from money earmarked for local government reorganisation, which can be redirected after the government paused the process for Kent in September.

The report also puts a price on delay. The construction prices assume work starts in November 2026, and if the decision slips beyond this meeting, officers expect costs to rise and extra funding to be needed. On the delivery model, the report says Alliance takes responsibility for delivering the scheme to the agreed price set at the end of Stage 4, with overruns, other than instructed variations and apportioned risks, managed or borne by Alliance. An internal audit of the project, finalised in September, gave it an opinion of “Substantial”.

Community groups that hire rooms at the current centre have asked for assurances about the new one. The council’s review found that no group currently has a contractual right to use the centre, and it does not recommend creating individual rights. It does propose amending the Management Agreement to state that meeting rooms for community hire are included as follows:

For the avoidance of doubt, as a minimum the Trust shall be required to deliver
the full range of leisure and community services provided by the Council
immediately prior to the Commencement Date and this includes, but is not
restricted to, wet and dry leisure facilities, soft play provision and meeting rooms
available for community hire.

With regard to the new planned centre, the council’s report states that:

The requirements of community facilities have been carefully considered
throughout the design process and meetings between the Council, the Trust and
individual hirers have, and continue to take place. The community spaces are
designed to have flexibility to accommodate small, medium and large events, with
each area fitted with state-of-the-art audio visual equipment and fixed induction
loops for the hearing impaired.

The new centre is planned for the Sovereign Way Mid Car Park site, a short distance from the current building. A residents’ survey, which drew 1,085 responses, helped shape the facility mix, which includes a larger gym, soft play, a café and a spin studio. The council says the building is designed to cut energy-related carbon emissions by around 88% compared with the existing centre, and to reach a BREEAM Excellent rating. Planning permission was granted by full council on 14 July.

If councillors approve the recommendation, the construction contract is due to be signed on 22 October, with completion on site targeted for 6 July 2028.

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Written by John

John is the ‘news’ editor for the Tonbridge Bean. Writing about all things politics and local development. He is particularly passionate about seeing a thriving High Street.

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