The Richard Dunn Sports Centre, named after the famous boxer who fought Muhammed Ali in 1976, originally Odsal Sports Centre, was designed by myself Trevor Skempton, as part of a team in the office of Owen Perry, Bradford City Architect until 1974. Gordon Elliot then took over; as Chief Architect for the Met District, after the construction contract had been let. Comprising pools, sports hall, dance studio, sauna, gym and ancillary facilities the centre was certainly state of the art. It was one of the first buildings to utilise computer aided design. The building closed in November 2019 after numerous modern leisure centres opened nearby, but remained semi-open as a gym during Covid, as well as a temporary morgue and vaccination hub. Permission for demolition was granted in 2020, but Covid-19 stalled this, but when the time came around again, a bid from Historic England saved the structure from being flattened and it was grade two listed. A large fire took place earlier this year.
Not much to say about this one, just haven't seen it reported, although it's been done a bunch on YouTube and Facebook. We first visited in early 2021, but the staff were still inside removing items. I somewhat lost interest after seeing it with the lights on, and realising it was predominantly darkness when the electricity would be switched of, however, caught wind that it was open and very simple, so me, @jtza and Alex headed over. As expected, it was ripe and we had some fun on the slides, was perfect for a Spring evening too as we hadn't explored for a month or so at that point.
Reception and entrance bridge.
Canteen.
Bar.
Quite liked the walkways around the building.
Gymnasium.
Pool and slides.
Was nice for dusty sensor mother to show up
Top of slides. We walked down the Zimbabwe and were left with broken backs. Not the first time for Theo
Changing rooms.
Squash court.
See video here:
