Opening date for leisure centre
Braywick: New facility being built at Braywick Park set to open its doors to the public on September 5
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September 5 is the date of the Braywick Leisure Centre’s official opening. A Maidenhead Town Forum meeting received an update on the £36m project.
The new Braywick Leisure Centre will open on Saturday, September 5, a Maidenhead Town Forum meeting was told on Monday.
The £36million project, which started in 2018, is due to open later this year, and will be funded mainly from the development of the existing Magnet Leisure Centre.
Drivers will benefit from 430 parking spaces and the building’s carbon footprint will be 70 per cent less than the leisure centre it is replacing in Holmanleaze.
The Braywick Leisure Centre will be operated by Parkway and Legacy Leisure – both in charge of the Magnet – and is expected to see one million visitors a year pass through its doors.
Speaking to councillors and the public at the town hall meeting, project lead Kevin Mist said: “We have gone for something that gives a little bit of delight to the eye.”
Cllr Samantha Rayner
(Con, Eton Wick), deputy leader of the council, was sitting in the public gallery.
She said: “The whole picture of Braywick is going to be an incredible one.”
It was not clear at the meeting whether a new bus route to the centre would be implemented.
Also on the agenda at the meeting was an update on the council’s key transport plans around Maidenhead.
The Royal Borough’s head of commissioning, Ben Smith, was not present but provided panel members with information on improvements to the transport network in the town.
Work on the A308 around the Three building is ‘substantially complete’, with one piece of remaining landscaping to be completed.
Meanwhile, works have commenced creating the cycle hub adjacent to the railway station forecourt, which is scheduled for completion in April.
Major works to the forecourt will then commence over the spring and summer – with an estimated completion date of autumn this year.
Mr Smith’s update advised that the forecourt works can only start when the existing parking has been relocated to Stafferton Way car park.
Forecourt work is subject to completion of legal agreements with Great Western Railway, Network Rail and the Department for Transport.
Elsewhere, the Royal Borough is carrying out a series of improvements to five key junctions in Maidenhead.
This will provide additional capacity at peak hours ahead of planned regeneration.
The first to be completed will be the Stafferton Way roundabout upon completion of the station works.
Other sites, Oldfield Road, Bath Road, Braywick Road
(M), and Castle Hill, will commence from late 2020 onwards.
Mr Smith also told the forum that a new pedestrian crossing will be installed in Braywick Road adjacent to the new leisure centre, and will be in place prior to its opening.