The £15m Crewe Lifestyle Centre is a brand new integrated hub for Cheshire East Council (CEC) services – including social care, the library and sports and leisure activities.
The Lifestyle Centre is a landmark building in the heart of the town and is performing a dual role as a catalyst for positive change.
Firstly, it promotes healthy living, wellbeing and practical learning opportunities to a diverse user-base and is adding value to the community by reducing the burden on the NHS.
And secondly, the new building has become a beacon for town centre regeneration. It has instantly revived and opened up an area that had ‘turned away’ from the town centre.
Substantial challenges faced Cheshire East Council and its key contract partners Kier Construction and Pozzoni (architect). The overarching challenge was to merge six CEC sites into one – and planning how the different services could be delivered effectively while co-existing under one roof.
At pre-construction meetings it soon became clear that the combined number of rooms requested by each service would have required a building twice the size.
At this point the ‘One Team’ ethos was introduced and this submission highlights how the team successfully overcame an exhaustive list of challenges to complete the project on time and to budget in May 2016.
One year on, the Centre has transformed the lives of many individual users, inspired and re-energised dedicated staff members, and generated levels of collaboration and joined-up thinking between the services that has far exceeded CEC’s expectations.
6 Building into one:
- Crewe Pool (Flag Lane)
- Crewe Library (Prince Albert Street)
- Victoria Centre (Victoria Street)
- Macon House (Macon Way)
- Hilary Centre (Salisbury Avenue)
- Ethel Elks Centre (Salisbury Avenue)
