Islington set to abandon Finsbury Leisure Centre plans in £10m loss for council

A CGI visual of the current Finsbury Leisure Centre site. Image: Islington Council

Islington Council is set to walk back on a multi-million pound redevelopment project for one of its leisure centres, citing spiralling costs and locals’ concern over space.

Plans to deliver 200 new homes, half of which were social housing, alongside the revamp of Finsbury Leisure Centre near Old Street are likely to be shelved pending approval from the cabinet tonight (24 April).

Town Hall chief Una O’Halloran (Labour) said there was too much financial risk in pressing on with the nearly £158m development.

However, she stressed that her decision was also driven by the desire to hold onto the borough’s sparse amount of “open space” – including community football pitches the council was due to build over.

She told the Citizen: “I said in November when I was elected I’d have to make tough decisions and I would look at things, and that’s what I’ve done.”

The council yesterday stated that global trade tariffs, volatile interest rates and recent supply chain disruption were at play in the decision to halt development.

While construction costs had “rocketed” amid heightened financial risk, with the project’s ongoing costs estimated at £363,000 per month, O’Halloran insisted it was about both “money and space”.

“We’re a borough where we’ve got the least open space, and to lose football pitches as well is a big thing,” she said.

According to a council report, only 13 per cent of Islington is ‘green space’.

The 2021 census showed the borough was the second-most densely populated local authority area in England, after Tower Hamlets.

Islington council leader Una O’Halloran. Photograph: Josef Steen / free for use by LDRS partners

O’Halloran added that “going [to the space] and meeting players” had also played its part in her decision.

“I still stick by this, whatever people say. I’m not prepared to put the financial risk on the council,” she said, especially while “Trump bubbles on”.

She added the cancellation “doesn’t mean the council is going to have less money”, and that funds for the borough’s housebuilding targets would be “redirected”.

The leadership will tonight recommend the cabinet approves the withdrawal of its planning application and the use of £2.3m from the council’s reserves to help cover the £10m already incurred.

Although the council leader highlighted that the football pitches would be “protected” as a result, the U-turn comes almost three years after the pre-application consultation on the plans ended.

The council had faced down opposition from local footballers who called the redevelopment “an absolute tragedy”.

In July last year, the cabinet greenlit the project’s progression to RIBA Stage 4 – the final architectural stage before construction.

The Town Hall previously proposed replacing these pitches on the roof of the new leisure centre as a compromise.

At the time, Cllr O’Halloran, who represents Bunhill, held the housing brief in the council’s exeuctive during Kaya Comer-Schwartz’s tenure as leader.

She became leader in November, following the departure of Comer-Schwartz, who left to take up the job of deputy mayor for policing and crime at City Hall.

O’Halloran told the Citizen she had stuck to the collective cabinet position at the time, but admitted she had harboured doubts about the project which was set to be delivered in her ward.

During the design stage, the Citizen previously reported that she had welcomed the plans for new homes, saying at the time: “I remember when the leisure centre was built, it is very out of date.”

Footballers protested against the plans. Photograph: EC1 Voices

In 2023, the cost of building the new leisure centre and roughly 200 homes was estimated to be £131m overall, including a £10.9m provision for inflation and a £12.9m ‘general contingency’.

This was after the council increased the budget by £4.6m, partly funded through borrowing.

As it stands, the £157.6m project was due to be financed primarily through the borough’s housing revenue account, alongside monies from the council’s ‘general fund’.

But by 31 March this year, the Town Hall had already spent over £10m on pre-construction alone, including on the application stage and fees for contractor Willmott Dixon Ltd and consultants Perfect Circle.

Now, the council will instead be “modernising the existing leisure centre” and “protecting and improving the sports pitches – making them more accessible and inclusive to maximise their use”.

A new neighbourhood health hub is also being mulled as the council scours the borough for alternative sites for “genuinely affordable housing”.

The Town Hall’s original plan included the provision of a new medical centre.

The Citizen asked the council leader what the struggles around this project suggested about the Labour government’s ambition to build 1.5 million homes over the next parliament, particular in light of the US slapping 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium imports.

“We’re under six square miles in Islington, but there are other boroughs with different sizes. I don’t have a brownfield site,” she said.

“I do believe Labour and the [London] mayor’s office will build homes, and I am not committing to stopping housebuilding.

“It might take a bit longer, but we will continue to build homes and council homes. That’s important to me.”