Councillors have given £17m plans to transform Victorian Baths in Belfast the green light.
Planning permission was granted for the restoration and refurbishment of Templemore Baths in the east of the city .
This includes an extension to provide a new 25m six-lane pool and spectator gallery, changing rooms, spa, expanded gym, interpretative facility and car parking.
The Heritage Lottery Fund awarded £5m last year in support of Belfast City Council’s plans to breathe new life into the last surviving Victorian baths in Ireland.
The project, which is likely to cost £17m, will blend the old and the new, conserving the building’s historic features and connecting users to its important social history whilst providing upgraded leisure facilities.
Templemore Baths was the last in a series of public baths to open throughout Belfast in the late 19th century.
It provided washing and sanitary facilities for the families who came to live in the area, attracted by the development of Harland and Wolff shipyard and other engineering enterprises in the east of the city.
The baths are one of the few remaining links to a way of life now disappeared and of a time when inner-east Belfast was a thriving industrial community.
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