The designs for Carlton’s brand-new leisure centre have been given the go-ahead.
Gedling Borough Council’s planning committee voted through the plans for the look of the incoming £30 million Carlton Active centre to be built on land off Foxhill Road.
The new modern centre will replace the Richard Herrod Centre, which is currently being demolished, as part of a wider revamp project that also seeks to tear down the Carlton Forum site.
Carlton Active, with a brick-and-copper-coloured cladding design, will have a smaller footprint than the current centre and will be built further south of the site, with 154 car parking spaces.
Detailed drawings reveal that the ground-floor will include an eight-lane swimming pool, a teaching pool, changing rooms, a café, a soft play area, a community room, and a studio with power-assisted equipment and toilets.
The first-floor would house a gym, two studios, changing and toilet facilities, and the viewing area for the pool.
Despite plans being voted through, a number of councillors expressed concern for the amount of parking at the future centre, given football spectators have frequently also used the Richard Herrod’s car park for weekend matches on the nearby playing fields.
Councillor Jane Allen (Con) said: “I think it would make it very busy, I’m very concerned about that.
“If you’ve got three teams playing up there and Saturday is going to be one of your most popular days to go and do the leisure and people wanting to go somewhere new, are they going to have enough parking?”
John Krawczyk, assistant director of development at the council, said: “I think that is an existing situation… the football pitches are existing, so the clubs are already parking on the site.”
Cllr Allen responded: “It’s not a leisure centre at the moment where you’ve got a lot of families that are going to be using it and people going to the gym.
“At the moment it was the [indoor] bowls and other bits and bobs – having a leisure centre is a completely different ball game to me.
“You’re going to have a lot of through traffic, a lot of residents are going to want to use it, everybody likes a new leisure centre – I’m concerned about the weekend parking.
Cllr Allen said it could cause cars to fill side streets and nearby residents may get “fed up”.
Cllr Julie Najuk (Lab) suggested the Carlton Forum car park would be a good alternative for football clubs as “it leads directly onto the football pitches”.
The council has been criticised for its decision to not include an indoor bowls facility in the redevelopment project, despite it having been originally considered in proposals.
This has meant the 300-member-strong Gedling Indoor Bowls Club was effectively left displaced from the end of April 2026, with no solid alternative location to move into.
Those previously involved in campaigning against this decision expressed concern for the health and wellbeing of club members, many of whom are older people, fearing some of them could be left “isolated”.
Gedling Borough Council previously said more than £2m in backlog works were required for the two existing leisure centres, which, along with a £545,000 yearly subsidy, made them “unsustainable in their current form”.
