New plans for refurbished Oasis pool revealed after developer U-turn

After initial plans for the refurbished Oasis Leisure Centre pool proved unpopular, developers SevenCapital have released a revised second attempt.

The property firm is the closed leisure centre’s de facto owner and is seeking planning permission to demolish parts of the centre and restore other parts, in order to be able to reopen it at the targeted 2026 anniversary year.

Its application for specific listed building consent for the pool and dome included documents that detail how a new pool area, although quite similar, might differ from the previous set-up people might remember.

(Image: Severn Capital)The domebuster slides will still be used, but instead of riders emerging into a shared splash pool – in the proposed new version there will be a separate much narrower pool of deeper water for each slide.

The internal tower and internal flume ride will disappear, as will the racer drop slides, with the small semi-circular extension to the main pool area also removed.

The children’s training pool will become something similar to a youngster’s splash park with a large aqua-play installation of small slides and other toys in the centre of the small pool, which will actually become larger, using the space that is occupied by the internal flume access tower.

The shape of the main pool will be largely the same as it was, with the deep pool at the base of the slides filled in.

The existing boulders will be retained and the angled side of the pool next to the boulders will be kept.

Next to that, the pool is largely rectangular and the application drawings show that lanes could be installed for those who want to use the pool for swimming lengths – which wasn’t part of the original vision for the pool, especially as that was where a wave machine was signalled.

(Image: Severn Capital)

The beach area of the pool which was an unusual feature of the original pool, opened in 1976 and is one reason why the pool and dome have been listed, will be retained.

The planets and seating that go around the beach area of the pool will be retained.

Many will be happy to see that this is a departure from initial plans to no longer have the pool-wide wave machine, but a contained pool that utilised a wave-making ball.

Rowan and Craig Stevens who are brothers who grew up very close to the Oasis centre were among those critical of that original plan plan.

Rowan said: “I think these plans aren’t sufficient, and I think Seven Capital is missing a trick.

The new pool looks more like a splash park for small children under a dome – it isn’t what the oasis pool was.

“There’s a big opportunity here – the UK is in love with retro, and here you have the ultimate 1970s centre. If they restored it to how it was people would flock here.”

His brother Craig said: “If Seven Capital refurbish the centre as these plans show, I think people will come out here once out of curiosity but wouldn’t come again. I worry it will fail.”

(Image: Seven Capital)

That was a view repeated by Neil Robinson of the Save Oasis Swindon campaign who said: ”We are getting a lot of feedback from people who are very concerned.

“They’re saying that the pool isn’t what’s needed, that it looks like a pool for young children – it’s very shallow. You can’t do lane swimming in the deep end as you could- there’s a separate pool it looks like, and there are no indoor slides.

“A lot of people are already unhappy that there is no sports hall in the plans and now more are concerned about these plans for the pool. We’re worried that it might not succeed in this form and it’ll be closed again and lost forever.”