A market town’s leisure centre will open next month following a £3.4 million refurbishment project.

The former Bungay Pool and Gym, on St John’s Hill, will be renamed Waveney Valley Leisure Centre, with work set to be completed this week.

The site closed in September 2019, with work on the new state-of-the-art facilities expected to take around 10 months to complete.

The project has included new changing rooms, showers and toilets, as well as immproved disabled facilities, a new cafe area and modern gym equipment in a refurbished studio.

A new sauna and purpose-built spin studio, as well as improvements to the car park area, have also been carried out.

Councillor Letitia Smith, cabinet member for leisure, said; “Before lockdown, we were seeing a real surge of interest in our refurbished leisure centres, which have all been completed to the highest standard, and we are excited the Waveney Valley Leisure Centre can now join this list.

“It goes without saying that taking care of our own wellbeing has never been more important, and exercise has a significant impact on both our physical and mental wellbeing, so we are very excited our customers are returning and we look forward to welcoming people back soon.

“I want to reassure everyone that we have been taking every step to ensure we can have a safe reopening, including putting a number of safety measures and cleaning regimes in place, as well as maintaining social distancing measures.

“I would personally like to thank our customers and everyone in the area for their support and patience while the work was done, and for being understanding to the slight delay in reopening due to Covid-19.

“One of our key priorities is to get more people active, and we hope we have created a facility which will be enjoyed by the community for many years to come.”

Reopening in October, the centre will be operated by Places Leisure on an interim basis following the end of Sentinel Leisure Trust’s operational contract, with a permanent operator expected to be appointed in December.

The centre is the third in East Suffolk to undergo a full refurbishment, following work at centres in Deben and Leiston.