ISG wins £10m pool-to-school transformation

The former East Leeds leisure centre will become the new permanent home for the Temple Learning Academy.

The academy opened at the start of the academic year in September 2015 in temporary accommodation as a through-school for 1,020 students aged 4-16 years. ISG has already carried out a refurbishment project to convert offices adjoining the leisure centre into classrooms, along with a new dining hall and lavatories, as well as construction of a new playground. This is now fully operational for the school’s first intake of reception aged children, and planning has now been secured for the main school building.

 Work on refurbishing and extending the existing leisure centre will begin in February 2016. Once the main building has been handed over, the reception classes currently housed in the converted office accommodation will be moved across, enabling ISG to carry out a further 17-week refurbishment programme to fit out the vacated classrooms as art rooms, music rooms and design & technology studios.

The scheme is looking to re-use as much of the existing infrastructure from the former leisure centre as possible. ISG will demolish the swimming pool but retain the steel frame building, and re-use the existing sports hall facility. The internal layout of the leisure centre will be significantly reconfigured to create teaching accommodation and ISG will also retain and repair the building’s façade – installing additional windows to bring natural light into the structure.

The scheme also sees ISG build a new three-storey steel frame extension with ribbon glazing and metal cladding elevations, which will be primarily used by older students.

The project also sees the construction of an artificial sports pitch and significant landscaping.

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