23 Feb 2026
After years of uncertainty, it has finally been confirmed that city’s iconic Alban Arena is no longer under threat of demolition and is definitely here to stay.
That was the top line takeaway from SADC leisure lead Cllr Helen Campbell at a catch-up looking at the district’s sports and theatre offering.
The conversation was largely focused on local facilities receiving an ‘Excellent’ rating by independent assessors following a £1.5 million investment programme that has driven record attendances and rising memberships.
But fears over its future have hung over the Arena since SADC announced plans to demolish the building and replace it with a new entertainment venue as part of the CCOS (City Centre Opportunity Site) North project, so we knew that it was important to get a definitive answer from Helen to put people’s minds at rest.
We wanted her assurance that the demolition proposal was no longer something SADC was considering moving forwards, before turning the focus on leisure facilities in general.
Launched in November 2021, the CCOS North initiative followed discussions with a group of key stakeholders including representatives from the Civic Society, OVO theatre company and the University of Herts business school.
At the time, Cllr Robert Donald said: “The Alban Arena has served the district well since the late 1960s but it has been evident for some years that it is in need of a major refurbishment if not a rebuild.
“It cannot, for example, stage some major touring productions as it does not have modern back-stage facilities and is not fit for purpose in terms of the number of seats or flexibility it can provide.
“The stakeholder consultative group, including representatives of local businesses and community organisations, has considered various options to create this new cultural offer.
“They have recommended that the best way forward is to create a completely new theatre in a different position on the site rather than refurbish the existing theatre which will cost a lot and still not provide what is really needed.”
But in a bid to balance the cash-strapped council’s budget for 2023-2024, CCOS North became one of several major capital projects to be placed on hiatus, with a view to restarting the scheme in the next couple of years once the economic situation improves.
Although a £277,000 investment by SADC and their leisure partners Everyone Active will see the eventual replacement of all stall and circle seating, plus the refurbishment of toilets and backstage green room facilities, nobody from the council had actually gone on the record to say the CCOS North plans were dead in the water until now.
“We know how important the Alban Arena is to people – CCOS North is no longer on the table, and neither are any plans to knock down the building,” Helen confirmed.
“What Everyone Theatres [part of Everyone Active] have done with it is absolutely phenomenal in my view. The investment made into that building has really lifted it to where it needs to be, and it’s actually at a level now with some West End facilities in terms of front of house and backstage.
“I’ve always loved it, but it was tired around the edges, and what they’ve actually done to glitz up that venue is absolutely amazing. It’s not a brand new modern building, but it’s not trying to be either, and I don’t think that’s what people want. When people go to the Alban Arena they like the history and the retro nature of it.”
She explained that the backstage upgrade has meant improvements in terms of programming, as productions which might have hesitated coming here because of poor facilities are now signing on board.
“There’s some really interesting stuff coming up, with a real breadth of offer from comedy and dance to wrestling and an ‘80s night.
“The next set of seating’s being put down in the summer, which is really exciting. We’ve had some fantastic comments from people about the new seating which is already in place. The old seats were uncomfortable, they were over 50 years old, tatty and a bit smelly!”
Both the Arena and the Eric Morecambe Centre in Harpenden, alongside Harpenden, Cotlandswick, Batchwood and Westminster Lodge leisure centres, was recently praised by Quest, an independent quality scheme for the sport and leisure sector, in recognition of everything from customer experience and operational performance to inclusivity and community impact.
Helen is justifiably proud of the ‘Excellent’ rating the service received, as well as how leisure centres membership increased by 12 per cent in 2025 and visits have increased by more than 290,000 year-on-year.
In 2022, Everyone Active and Everyone Theatres took the district’s sports and theatre facilities under one umbrella for the first time, which Helen says has created continuity of management and an understanding of what the council is trying to achieve.
Referring specifically to the leisure centres, she said: “I see all the time the passion they have for their roles and what they’re trying to deliver, which are really private standard sports facilities at a low-cost, accessible level for the community – they really don’t feel like local authority leisure centres, and certainly not like the ones I grew up with.
“I remember going to Westminster Lodge when it opened about 14, 15 years ago, and the newness, the glitziness and the freshness of it was amazing.
“But even though the building is getting on, it’s being refurbished, with loads of upgrades to the showers, and a really fancy upgrade to the Verulamium Spa. We want people to really feel that they can access quality facilities.”
Everyone Active are also doing their bit to provide accessible classes for a variety of community demographics, from providing facilities for school swimming classes to supporting former offenders who perhaps didn’t have the chance to learn to swim when they were growing up through a partnership with the charity HACRO (the Hertfordshire Association for the Care and Rehabilitation of Offenders).
“They’re learning to swim as adults, and the value that it’s giving them as people and individuals in feeling part of society is really, really important.”
They are also running outreach programmes into other communities, providing classes in village and church halls so residents don’t necessarily have to make the trip to one of the big leisure centres.
These include sessions for people with Parkinson’s, for whom it is crucial to keep moving despite their debilitating condition.
“I’m not a scientist, but I understand it is scientifically proven that the more you move in the early stages of Parkinson’s, you can actually stave off the progression of this really cruel disease.
“So Everyone Active gift what they call Parkinson’s memberships to people who have the condition and have been referred by their GP. I actually had the pleasure of watching a Parkinson’s class at Harpenden Leisure Centre recently, with around 18 older people of varying degrees of mobility. Some of them were obviously in quite advanced stages, but others were much, much earlier, but the beauty of that class was they were all people who shared the same condition, and if they hadn’t been there they may have simply been sitting at home struggling to get out of an armchair.
“What those classes are really good at doing is helping them maintain their independence to the best degree that is possible with Parkinson’s, including getting out of their chair, off the bed and being able to move around in their own home.
“The instructor is called Delia, and she’s phenomenal, she has absolutely the right voice – encouraging and gentle – just letting people do what they could, and if they could do a little bit more, to do a little bit more, but absolutely not feel as though they were failing if they couldn’t keep up with other people.”
It also includes work with Sopwell Residents Association about increasing youth provision at Cottonmill Community and Cycling Centre.
“You don’t just tell young people what they should be doing with their time. You find out from the young people what they would like to do, and then try and find a way to offer that.
“The Residents’ Association down in Sopwell has got a fabulous network, and the people down there are absolutely phenomenal in terms of the effort that they put in to represent and deliver things for the community.”
Although these initiatives are coming from Everyone Active as experts in this field, Helen said they represent the values of the Liberal Democrat administration at SADC.
“We are all about accessibility and fairness. We’re all about helping people feel that they’re included and not barred.”
And although this conversation isn’t about the always-controversial issue of parking charges, Helen stressed that part of this accessibility was giving members and visitors to the leisure centres the opportunity to park for free for a period of time: “That’s obviously really important in terms of people being able to get to the facilities. I mean, not everybody drives to the leisure centres, obviously, but people often need to for a number of reasons, so if you’re a member, you have free parking. If you are a user of the facility on that visit, you have free parking as well.”
Helen argues that if the council maintained subsidised parking across the district, then it would be harder to protect community facilities like leisure centres, which are not statutory services.
“Our objective is constantly to protect the services that we know are valuable to our residents, which include things like leisure centres and theatre venues.
“Obviously it’s no secret that all local authorities are cashed out and up against it, but it hasn’t stopped us finding ways to provide these services in the current financial climate.
“We do that by making hard and prudent decisions after really listening to our communities, getting under their skin and making sure we understand what it is they would like, what they need, what they use and what it would mean to them if suddenly something wasn’t there any more.
“Other local authorities under the same sort of financial pressures have made different decisions.Some of them have ended up closing swimming pools or leisure centres because they’ve ended up with no choice.
“We have a national obesity crisis, a national mental health crisis, something like six million people have either got diabetes or undiagnosed diabetes in the UK, and all of things are obviously contributing to the pressures that the NHS is under.
“This is where local authorities come in by prioritising the continuation and the maintenance and provision of these services so that large numbers of people who otherwise would be inactive and immobile don’t end up contributing to further pressure on the NHS.
“We provide facilities like this even though we are under immense financial pressure because they have a huge beneficial impact to the wider community and to the bigger picture nationally as well.
“These facilities are incredibly important to the council, they’re not there to make a profit, they are there to provide low-cost, accessible leisure facilities for the wider community, and we’ll continue protecting them and hoping the financial situation doesn’t get any harder.”
