Final Day for Mill House as Hartlepool Prepares for New £36m Pound Marina Leisure Centre..
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Last Swim, Last Workout, Last Goodbye, as Hartlepool's Mill House Leisure Centre Closes Today...
30th April 2026
Today marks the end of an era for Hartlepool, as The Mill House Leisure Centre opens its doors to the public for the final time today after more than five decades at the heart of the town’s sporting and leisure life.
The Hartlepool leisure centre, which first opened on the 4th of March 1972, has served generations of Hartlepool families, swimmers, schoolchildren, fitness users and sports clubs.
But after 54 years of service, the centre will close at 8.45pm tonight, Thursday 30 April 2026, as Hartlepool prepares to move into a new chapter for leisure and wellbeing in the town. Hartlepool Borough Council says the closure will allow staff to transfer to the new facility and complete essential training and commissioning work before the opening of its replacement.
Mill House is being replaced by the new multi-million-pound Highlight Active Wellbeing Hub, based at The Waterfront within Hartlepool Marina, with the new centre due to officially open to the public on the 10th June 2026.
The council has described Highlight as a major milestone in the transformation of Hartlepool’s leisure offer, with the new building forming part of its wider £160 million capital regeneration programme. Construction began in early 2024, with the project funded by Hartlepool Borough Council, Tees Valley Combined Authority and Sport England.
The new facility will include three swimming pools, made up of a 25-metre eight-lane main pool, a 25-metre four-lane learner pool with a moveable floor, and a leisure pool with a race slide and interactive water play features. It will also include a 100-station gym, two fitness studios, a dedicated indoor cycling studio, soft play areas, party and meeting rooms, a café overlooking the marina, NHS consultation suites, outdoor terraces and links to watersports opportunities at the Marina.
Highlight has also been designed with accessibility in mind, with dedicated accessible parking, level or ramped access, lifts, accessible changing facilities, specialist gym equipment and pool pods to help wheelchair users independently access the pools.
For many in Hartlepool, today will be about the memories as much as the regeneration. Mill House has been a familiar part of the town for more than half a century — a place where children learned to swim, families spent weekends, clubs trained, and countless residents built routines around fitness, sport and community life.
Its closure will leave a gap of several weeks before Highlight opens in June. During the transition, the council says Active Hartlepool will extend opening hours at the Headland Sports Centre from the 2nd of May, with the centre open Monday to Friday from 7am to 9pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 8am to 3pm.
While the closure of Mill House will be a nostalgic moment for many, the opening of Highlight in June is being presented as the beginning of a new era for health, fitness and community activity in Hartlepool.
The future of the Mill House Leisure centre in Raby Rd is still up for debate with previous plans drawn up as part of the Hartlepool Development Corporation to demolish the building and the land used for future re-development.
