Portman Road 'masterplan' includes pool and hotel

A masterplan to redevelop the car park outside Ipswich Town's stadium also includes a new hotel and park areas, it has been revealed.

Ipswich Borough Council already said it wanted to replace the town's Crown Pools with a new aquatics centre, which would include a gym.

The council said the alignment of Portman Road itself could be changed to allow any redevelopment of the football club's Cobbold Stand, opposite the existing car park.

A new seven-level car park would also be built to replace the existing 500 parking spaces that would be lost.

A new multi-storey car park would be built to make up for the loss of the existing Portman Road car park

The proposed aquatics centre would include pools, water flumes, a bigger gym, facilities for fitness classes, a soft play area and cafe.

Mark Ashton, chief executive at Ipswich Town FC, said the redevelopment of the Cobbold Stand and increase in capacity was part of the club's long-term plan.

"While it must be stressed no work is imminent, we are pleased to have been able to work with Ipswich Borough Council to identify the required land to make this possible,” he said.

John Cook, portfolio holder for sport and communities at the Labour-run council, acknowledged they were "ambitious" plans, but said funding was already in place for the multi-storey car park.

"The swimming pool is going to be a challenge for us - it will be a big expense.

"We will probably have to work with partners to deliver that but what we want to do is show our vision for the future."

The council has issued an artist's impression of what the new aquatics centre would look like

The council said Portman Road itself could be realigned to allow for any future redevelopment of Ipswich Town's Cobbold Stand

Mr Cook added it was "hard to give a date" for the whole project to come to fruition, but it would be "three to four years away, but that's a guess at the moment".

"We will be getting outline planning permission very shortly, subject to the planning and development committee of Ipswich Borough Council, and then we'll be ready to start talking to people about how we get these steps in place to get it built," he added.

'Can we afford repayments?'

Ian Fisher, leader of the Conservative group, said it was an "exciting project" but the council had to make cuts of £15m over the next four years.

"It does seem to be timed to be coming out just before the [May] elections, so I wouldn't be surprised to see Labour have their election leaflets all about this," he said.

"I'm interested to know how it's going to be funded... because it will be the taxpayers of Ipswich that are underwriting it.

"Yes, we could take out a huge loan from the Public Works Loans Board, which is essentially the government, but I'm not too sure we could afford the repayments.

He added that the council had already committed £1.8m to help fund the reopening of the Broomhill Lido open-air pool off Norwich Road, which he said was "an excellent thing to do".

He asked: "Should we really be spending all of this money on two swimming pools at the same time?"

The next stage would be getting outline planning permission and the council's executive meets on Tuesday, 19 March to discuss the masterplan.