Derbyshire Dales District Council's proposed new leisure complex between Matlock and Darley Dale gathered pace this week, with a further massive funding boost and the appointment of a design team.

Overall the £12million scheme on a brownfield site at The Dimple above the A6 road will cover an area equivalent to 10 international sized football pitches. Adopting another sporting code, it will be six times bigger than the playing area at Lord's Cricket Ground.

The design of the new complex, which has the potential to create new jobs and attract around 400,000 user visits a year, twice the number of visits to the outdated facilities it replaces.

Progress on the project, known at this stage as the Central Area Leisure Centre or 'CALC', advanced this week with the appointment of an external design team and confirmation of a £500,000 grant from Sport England to go with other significant external funding already secured by the District Council.

James Buller, Investment Manager at Sport England East Midlands, said "Sport England is delighted to present Derbyshire Dales District Council with the opportunity to improve it's sporting facilities by providing funding for the new leisure complex. We hope the facility provides a huge boost for sport in the district, helping more people get involved in sport and reach their potential."

Derbyshire Dales District Council will be investing around £7million into the project, comprising capital funding already set aside and receipts from the sale of a site adjacent to CALC for a new family pub/restaurant and the sale of the old Sherwood Hall Leisure Centre site. The current Matlock Lido site will also be sold to assist in the funding but only after CALC has been completed.

CALC will be an all-year-round all-weather indoor and outdoor complex incorporating a new swimming facility that meets National Short Course competition requirements, together with a main sports hall comprising county standard badminton courts and facilities for indoor hockey, basketball, volleyball, five-a-side football, netball, gymnastics and cricket nets.

A secondary sports hall will accommodate aerobics, dance, fitness classes, martial arts, parties, table tennis and yoga, and also planned is a fitness suite.
Also factored in are a café, meeting rooms and a community room to replace the present Darley Dale Community Centre, while outside, in addition to existing football pitches, BMX trails, a multi-use games area and ecological corridors are planned.

Access to the site is already established from the A6 road. On site parking and cycle routes will also be created.

"We believe CALC will be massively significant to residents in this part of the district. This will be a striking high quality development offering a wide range of opportunities in swimming, dry sport and leisure activities as well as being attractive to visitors to the wider Peak District" said Councillor Geoff Stevens, Deputy Leader of the District Council. "The site itself and the key facilities were identified after extensive public consultation and the great news is that the detailed design process can now begin working towards completion and opening in the summer of 2011."

Derbyshire Dales District Council has been working closely with the local community on the project. Regular meetings take place with the Matlock Area Recreation and Sports Group (MARS), which comprises local residents and representatives from sports clubs and community groups. "This is yet another massive step forward for CALC" said Barrie Tipping, Chair of MARS "We are most grateful to Sport England, their grant coming after a lot of dedicated hard work by officers of the District Council".

Drivers Jonas, of Manchester, who submitted the winning bid in a tendering process to select the design team, will now draw up the detailed design. The Drivers Jonas team has significant leisure experience having delivered a number of new leisure centres and swimming pools to date across the UK. Their previous leisure related projects include the new Xcel Leisure Centre in Coventry, Sunderland Football Club's Training Academy and the new High Performance Athletics Centre in London, which will be used as a training camp for the 2012 Olympics, to name but a few.

"Drivers Jonas have an excellent reputation in the leisure industry and we very much look forward to working with them," said Derbyshire Dales' Director of Planning and Development Services Dave Brooks. "Also, as a company they have achieved carbon neutral status. This is important as addressing climate change is a major design consideration."

Stephen Jepson, a Partner at Drivers Jonas said "We are delighted to have won this exciting and challenging project, which I am convinced will provide a first class facility for the local community and the wider Derbyshire Dales."

The Central Area Leisure Centre, which follows on from the upgrading of District Council leisure facilities in Ashbourne, Bakewell and Wirksworth, is a key component of the Dales Central Corridor Initiative that has already seen the completion of improvements to Hall Leys Park in Matlock, the opening of the new Sainsbury's store and a new relief road for the town.

To view the CALC Concept diagram click here.