Britannia

The existing Britannia Leisure Centre became increasingly expensive to maintain, had outdated facilities and regularly needed patching.

We’re determined to provide high-quality leisure facilities for local people, so we invested in a new centre that will provide modern and better facilities for our residents for years to come.

There are also not enough available school places in Hackney to meet demand, which is why we built a new school for the City of London Academy Shoreditch Park.

The new building provides excellent facilities for 1,140 pupils to help meet the needs of our growing borough. The City of London Academy Trust has an outstanding track record in the borough, with 89%of students at the City Academy Hackney achieving five or more A*-C grades at GCSE level.

We’re also building 51 new homes for social rent and 30 homes for shared ownership on the site of the original leisure centre.

In the absence of sufficient government funding, this will also will include new homes to be sold outright, helping pay for the new genuinely affordable homes, leisure facilities and secondary school that Hackney is building in the first phase.

A new leisure centre

Designed with local people and users, it will include the following facilities:

• 6 lane, 25m main pool with moveable floor
• 20m x 10m training pool with moveable floor
• leisure water – for children and families – with water features and a flume
• café and toilets (also serving Shoreditch Park)
• 6 court sports hall
• crèche and soft play area
• sauna and steam room
• fitness suite, spin studio and flexible studio spaces
• 4 squash courts
• 2 five-a-side pitches
• 2 tennis courts

The centre is the biggest public sector investment in the area in a generation. Construction of the leisure centre began in 2019 and despite significant challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic, our contractor Morgan Sindall has successfully completed the new building.

A new secondary school

The permanent home for The City of London Academy Shoreditch Park, provides 1,140 much-needed places for students aged 11-18.

The City of London Academy Trust has an outstanding track record in the borough, with 89% of students at The City Academy Hackney achieving five or more A*–C grades at GCSE level.

It’s one of the top schools in the country for pupil progress. The new school will continue to use Hackney’s existing admissions policy, based on distance from the school, and will not be selective. The new secondary school opened in July 2021.

Better public spaces

Around the new facilities we’ll also create a new public square with seating, space for community events, and a new entrance to Shoreditch Park.

We’ll also plant lots of wildlife-friendly trees and plants to provide a greater variety of habitats and food sources. This will help bees, birds and bats find places to call home,

The plans overall will improve biodiversity in the area, with the 65 trees being removed to accommodate these plans being replaced with 100 additional trees that will provide the same level of canopy cover within ten years. This is alongside a new public square and entrance to Shoreditch Park, improved local walking and cycling routes and 1,000 new cycle parking spaces.

The masterplan for the whole project was led by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, including the housing, school and public open space. Specialist leisure architects FaulknerBrowns designed the new leisure centre. 

Morgan Sindall Construction and Infrastructure built the new leisure centre and school. The contract for the leisure centre construction was signed on 29 May 2019, and its total value is £53,795,878,70.

The contract for the school construction was signed on 16 July 2019, and its total value is £43,700,039.

We are in the process of appointing a construction partner to build the homes in the first phase.

If you live locally, you can contact Morgan Sindall’s Community Investment Manager, Dalia Islam, on 07976 587 990 or dalia.islam@morgansindall.com to ask any questions or find out detailed information about construction. Morgan Sindall’s Hackney Britannia project website has the latest detailed construction information.

Detailed planning permission for the first phase of the project, and outline planning permission for the second phase, was granted in 2018.

Construction of the new leisure centre began in spring 2019 and has now been completed.

Construction of the new school was completed in 2021.

We have appointed Ardmore Construction to deliver the final phase of the project, which includes new homes for social rent, shared ownership and outright sale on the site of the original leisure centre.

• Britannia phase 2b – Demolition and Construction Management Plan – April 2023 (PDF 12.7mb)
• Britannia phase 2b update session Q&A – 7 October 2021 (PDF 121kb)
• Britannia phase 2b update session presentation – 7 October 2021 (PDF 9mb)
• Britannia phase 2b update session – 20 July 2021 (PDF 405kb)
• Britannia phase 2b update session Q&A from 20 July 2021 (PDF 405kb)

• Britannia update session Q&A – July 2023 (PDF 3.2mb)
• Britannia update session presentation – July 2023 (PDF 357kb)
• Britannia update session presentation – April 2023 (PDF 1.5mb)
• Britannia update session Q&A – April 2023 (PDF 114kb)
• Britannia update session Q&A – November 2022 (PDF 99kb)
• Britannia update session presentation – September 2022 (PDF 3.3mb)
• Britannia update session Q&A – September 2022 (PDF 109kb)
• Britannia update session Q&A – July 2022 (PDF 96kb)
• Britannia update session presentation – July 2022 (PDF 7.7mb)
• Britannia update session presentation – May 2022 (PDF 105kb)
• Britannia update session Q&A – May 2022 (PDF 105kb)

• Second Staircase Amendment presentation – Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios – July 2023 (PDF 10.8mb)

• Meet the builder presentation – Ardmore – July 2023 (PDF 8mb)

• Britannia newsletter May 2023 (PDF 1,006kb)
• Winter 2021 local newsletter (PDF 8mb)
• Summer 2021 local newsletter (PDF 5mb)
• October 2020 local newsletter (PDF 286kb)
• May 2020 local newsletter (PDF 596kb)
• January 2020 local newsletter (PDF 3mb)
• autumn 2019 local newsletter (PDF 551kb)
• autumn 2019 leisure centre users newsletter (PDf 581kb)
• spring 2019 local newsletter (PDF 565kb)
• spring 2019 leisure centre users newsletter (PDF 387kb)