End of an Era: Mill House Leisure Centre Could Be Gone by Christmas..

Site could be cleared by Christmas, according to plans submitted to Hartlepool Borough Council.

Plans Formally Submitted to Demolish Hartlepool’s Mill House Leisure Centre

25th August 2026

One of Hartlepool’s best-known leisure buildings could disappear from the town’s landscape before the end of the year after formal plans were submitted to Hartlepool Borough Council.

An application has formally been submitted by the Hartlepool Development Corporation seeking prior approval for the demolition of the former leisure centre on Raby Road, with documents submitted with the application outlining that demolition could be expected to begin as early as the 7th of September 2026, with the work scheduled to be completed by 24th December 2026.

The application effectively marks the final chapter for a building which has served generations of Hartlepool residents but which has now been replaced by the new Highlight leisure centre on the waterfront at Hartlepool Marina.

Council says building has reached end of its life

In its application, Hartlepool Borough Council says The Mill House Centre has “reached the end of its lifespan” and is now considered redundant following the opening of the multi million pound Highlight Leisure centre.

However, the documents reveal that keeping the empty building standing is also creating continuing problems. The council says unlawful access to the site has resulted in anti-social behaviour and that 24-hour on-site security teams have been required to manage the risks and protect the surrounding area.

Demolition, the application argues, would remove those problems as well as what the council now describes as a visual eyesore.

Rather than immediately constructing something new on the site, the council proposes turning the cleared footprint into a soft-landscaped area, together with security measures intended to reduce the risk of fly-tipping.

There are currently no plans for re-development of the site despite it being one of the long term goals of the Hartlepool Development Corporation.

What exactly will be demolished?

The scale of the work reflects the substantial construction of the old leisure centre, with the council describing Mill House as having been engineered in the late 1960s to cope with heavy daily use, combining conventional construction with the specialist engineering required for a major swimming and sports complex.

Under the proposed demolition method, contractors intend to demolish the existing buildings and clear the resulting material; breaking out the swimming pools and backfill them with inert subsoil as well as removing the the floor slab and foundations, any asbestos-containing materials and then restoring the site through soft landscaping and measures designed to discourage fly-tipping.

A substantial 102-page asbestos management survey, undertaken by specialist firm Environtec in September 2025, identified or presumed asbestos-containing materials in numerous parts of the complex.

The end of the Mill House era

For generations of Hartlepool residents, Mill House was synonymous with swimming lessons, school trips, sports sessions and family visits.

Its replacement by the multimillion-pound Highlight development may have made the ageing centre redundant, but its proposed demolition nevertheless represents the disappearance of another familiar part of Hartlepool’s recent history, with demolition machinery poised to move onto the Raby Road site within weeks.