Today sees the opening of the £26m Marina Centre leisure complex on Great Yarmouth seafront.

The centre will open its doors to people at 1pm.

Replacing the previous Marina Centre, the new facility boasts a six-lane swimming pool, learner pool and aqua play area with flumes, a 120-station gym, a four court sports hall, 10m indoor climbing zone, three studios and community spaces.

The Marine Parade site has more than 150 car parking spaces available, with further parking opening later in the month.

Owned by Great Yarmouth Borough Council, the complex will be operated by Freedom Leisure.

The new centre was first proposed in 2013, with work starting in January 2021 to replace the previous 1980s built centre

Looking forward to today's opening was Carl Smith, borough council leader, who enjoyed a sneak preview of its facilities on Wednesday.

He said: "I'm absolutely delighted. It's great to see it all come together.

"It's a fantastic facility for residents' health and wellbeing and also for the visitors of Great Yarmouth.

"I've had a go on the water flume and the climbing wall. It's been great fun.

"Hopefully people will be delighted with the facilities here and I hope they come and enjoy them."

Trevor Wainwright, leader of the Labour group at the council, also had a sneak preview on Wednesday.

He said: "It's amazing. It's been a long time coming - initial conversations about upgrading the Marina Centre began in 2013, so to see it come to fruition after a decade is great news."

Freedom Leisure area manager Martin Marsh said: "I think it's going to be quite an event today. It's all going well. The teams are trained and what a great team we've got.

"I'm excited to see people check out the flumes and aqua play."

The new centre has been funded by Great Yarmouth Borough Council, plus £2.5m secured from the Government's Getting Building Fund via the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership, £1.6m from Sport England, and £500,000 from the Norfolk business rates pool.

The centre’s general opening times will be 6.30am to 10pm weekdays, 8am to 8pm Saturdays and Sundays.

For information on prices and memberships visit Freedom Leisure's website.