Black Country leisure centre to be demolished to make way for new homes

Sandwell Council’s cabinet has approved plans to demolish the 125-year-old Harry Mitchell Leisure Centre in Smethwick as part of plans to flatten the site for housing.

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The local authority said the leisure centre was “surplus to requirements” and demolition of the building is currently expected to cost around £711,000.

The council said early plans include between 30 and 45 new houses and flats but could reach as many as 80 dwellings.

The Labour-run council’s cabinet approved the work at a meeting on March 11.

Cllr Syeda Khatun, the council’s cabinet member for business and skills, said the borough had a “surplus” of leisure facilities and the ‘jewel in the crown’ Sandwell Aquatics Centre was less than a mile away.

Cllr Khatun said it had always been the council’s intention to close Harry Mitchell as part of the opening of the £73m leisure centre to the public following the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games.

Sandwell Council said Harry Mitchell Leisure Centre was the “oldest and poorest” facility in the borough and would need at least £1.5m, according to a 2018 survey, to ‘completely refurbish’ the building and bring it to standard – including “substantial” roof repairs.

The leisure closed ‘casually’ in May last year and was empty by October – remaining empty since. Parts of the leisure centre relocated to the Sandwell Aquatics Centre in 2024.

The town’s Thimblemill Baths and Langley Baths closed as part of the opening of the Sandwell Aquatics Centre and Sandwell Council revealed at the start of 2025 it was looking to give up Hadley Stadium in Smethwick and close the town’s Harry Mitchell Leisure Centre as part of plans to save more than £500,000 through a review of its leisure facilities.

This cabinet report said the £540,000 saving set out in the council’s budget last year had been met through “alternative sources” but “resolving the future of the site would support the [council’s] wider strategic review.”

“Taking the site and its associated liabilities out of the leisure management portfolio will make Sandwell’s leisure estate more sustainable,” it said.

The report said: “Since [the 2018] survey, further deterioration has occurred, including significant roof leaks and water ingress, resulting in urgent repair needs.

“The building is now considered to be in extremely poor cosmetic condition and requires complete refurbishment, including a new roof, boilers, and re‑wiring.

“Given the escalating costs of repair, the limited scale of the facility, and the availability of high-quality alternative provision in the surrounding area, retention is no longer considered financially viable.”

Last year, Cllr Ashley Lewis, who represents the Smethwick ward, said Hadley Stadium, which sits less than a mile from the £73m Sandwell Aquatics Centre built for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, was once called the borough’s ‘jewel in the crown’ but had been left to crumble on purpose.

Cllr Lewis said the site had been in “disrepair for seven or eight years without any investment” and had been ‘managed into decline.’

The site of Harry Mitchell Leisure Centre, next to Smethwick Cricket Club, was gifted to Smethwick Urban District Council by its namesake in 1899.