Detailed plans for a large leisure development have been unveiled in Derbyshire.
The Derbyshire Dales District Council (DDDC) has appointed a project manager and design team - led by Manchester-based Drivers Jonas Sport (DJS) - to build a new leisure complex between Matlock and Darley Dale.
The £12m scheme, to be located on a brownfield site at The Dimple above the A6 road, will cover around 74,000sq m and will replace an existing sports facility on the site.
The project, which has been given the working name of Central Area Leisure Centre (CAL), recently received a £500,000 grant from Sport England.
CALC will be an all-year-round all-weather indoor and outdoor complex incorporating a new swimming facility that meets national short course competition requirements, together with a main sports hall comprising county standard badminton courts and facilities for indoor hockey, basketball, volleyball, five-a-side football, netball, gymnastics and cricket nets.
A secondary sports hall will accommodate aerobics, dance, fitness classes, martial arts, parties, table tennis and yoga, and also planned is a fitness suite.
There are also plans to include a café, meeting rooms and a community room to replace the present Darley Dale Community Centre.
The open spaces will be utilised by the introduction of BMX trails, a multi-use games area and ecological corridors.
DDDC will be investing more than £7m into the project, comprising capital funding already set aside and receipts from the sale of a site adjacent to CALC for a new family restaurant and the sale of the old Sherwood Hall Leisure Centre site.
The current Matlock Lido site will also be sold to assist in the funding but only after CALC has been completed.
The centre, which follows on from the upgrading of District Council leisure facilities in Ashbourne, Bakewell and Wirksworth, is a key component of the Dales Central Corridor Initiative that has already seen the completion of improvements to Hall Leys Park in Matlock, the opening of the new Sainsbury's store and a new relief road for the town.
Geoff Stevens, deputy leader of DDDC, said: "We believe CALC will be massively significant to residents in this part of the district.
"This will be a high quality development offering a wide range of opportunities in swimming, dry sport and leisure activities as well as being attractive to visitors to the wider Peak District.
"The site itself and the key facilities were identified after extensive public consultation and the great news is that the detailed design process can now begin working towards completion and opening in the summer of 2011."
