£32m leisure centre faces demolition

A £32million leisure centre which drained the funds of London's poorest borough may be demolished this year.

Now the council has admitted an engineering report is likely to conclude it will cost more to make it safe than to replace it. Guy Nicholson, the council's director of regeneration, said: "If we are looking at sums of money that equate with the cost of a new centre, we will demolish."

Architects and engineers are trying to establish the extent of the faults. They are carrying out a thorough investigation, involving hacking off plaster and removing tiles. They will also "power up" the building to simulate operational conditions and check systems. Their report is expected at the end of the summer.

The news of possible demolition has enraged local MP Diane Abbott, who repeated her calls for a public inquiry. "It is a monumental waste of public money and a scandalous piece of mismanagement," she said.

Meanwhile, the council is pursuing legal action against Manchester-based architects Hodder Associates, and consultants Davis Langdon Everest over cost and time overruns. In its short history the Clissold has seen its electric plant rooms flooded, water damage to its sports hall floor, cracked walls in the squash courts and defective changing rooms. Other pools in Hackney have been closed to provide funding for the new building, and the cost of the centre also resulted in rubbish collections being slashed. Hundreds of jobs remain at risk.

Building work started on the centre in 1998 but the "wave" roof proved impossible to build and had to be redesigned, causing massive delays and expense. The District Audit

Office began warning of poor management and overspending in 2000.

The Clissold finally opened in early 2002, by which time it had cost more than £30 million - £10 million of which came from a grant from Sport England, using Lottery money.

But it was closed last December when water leaked into the electric plant. The council said the closure would only be until February, but then had to announce an indefinite closure as more defects were found.