Closed leisure centre will not reopen for months as repairs continue

Tottenham Green Pools and Fitness requires £380,000-worth of repairs before it can reopen, reports Simon Allin, Local Democracy Reporter

A Tottenham leisure centre is not expected to fully reopen for months after its electrical systems were flooded by sewage.

Tottenham Green Leisure Centre has been closed since the start of the year after the plant room containing the systems was hit by the flooding – causing damage set to cost around £380,000 to fix.

Work to repair the low-voltage systems started on Monday (13th) and, by the end of the month when they are due to be fixed, work on the high voltage systems will begin. But the more complex work on the high-voltage systems that supply the swimming pools is expected to take 16 weeks to complete.

Councillors raised concerns for residents unable to use the leisure centre, with one branding the ongoing closure “utterly intolerable”.

An update on the borough’s leisure centres – which are owned by the council and run by charity Fusion Lifestyle – was presented to a meeting of the council’s environment and community safety scrutiny panel on Thursday (16th) by Mark Stevens, the authority’s assistant director of direct services.

Mark’s presentation revealed the plant room had been flooded by sewage and that the source of the flood had still not been found – with some foul water continuing to leak into the plant room.

The electrical systems at Tottenham Green are not mounted on a plinth as they are at the council’s other leisure centres, meaning they were submerged by the flooding and the power had to be cut off.

Mark told the meeting water was coming up from beneath the concrete floor of the plant room and contained faecal matter, which “suggests it is foul water”. He added that this indicates there is a problem with the foul water sewer running under the centre – but Thames Water “think there is nothing wrong with their system”.

Restoring the low-voltage systems – set to cost around £80,000 – will enable the gym, library, and customer services centre to reopen. The swimming pools rely on the high-voltage system, which is expected to take 16 weeks to rebuild at a cost of around £300,000.

Panel member Ibrahim Ali, who represents Bruce Castle ward, said the ongoing closure of the centre had “far-reaching consequences for the entire community” and branded the situation “utterly intolerable”. He asked why basic repair works had not started sooner.

Mark replied that several weeks had been spent trying to find the source of the leak and ensuring the power supply could be switched back on safely.

Panel members Michelle Simmons-Safo and Alexandra Worrell asked what was being done to find alternative provision for affected residents living in some of the most “marginalised and impoverished” parts of the borough, warning that aspiring athletes were being prevented from training.

Mark said the council had been signposting people to Park Road Pools and Fitness in Crouch End and New River Sport and Fitness, as well as Fusion-run centres in other boroughs.

The panel heard that the pools at the Park Road centre were temporarily closed in January because automatic chemical dosing systems had not been working properly, meaning the chemicals were being added to the water by hand.

Mark said the council’s leisure and environmental health teams visited the centre and were “very uncomfortable with what they saw”. The council ordered the pools to be closed until the automatic dosing system was back up and running and other repair works were completed, he added. The pools at Park Road reopened on 8th February.

The council has now stepped up its monitoring of the leisure centres. Mark said some customers had complained they had not received refunds for the closures, and the council had been “totally on their [Fusion’s] case trying to tackle that issue”.

Local news needs your support

We are proud that we were at the forefront of reporting on the recent local elections. We can’t do this without the support of our readers.

Independent news outlets like ours – reporting for the community without rich backers – are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.

If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, yearly or one-off donation.