Diss Leisure Centre Approved: Gym, Soft Play and Mere Café

Diss’s new leisure and community centre, on the former John Grose garage site beside the Mere, now has full planning permission. South Norfolk Council, which is building it, said on 15 October that construction can now begin.

The centre will have a gym, a soft play area, a café and a community room. An outdoor plaza will look out over the Mere. Diss is about 15 miles south of Wymondham.

What is being built

The council’s planning committee report sets out the design. It is a two-storey building of 1,085 square metres, about 37 metres long, 20 metres wide and 9.5 metres high.

Inside, it will have:

• ground floor: a café and kitchen, a soft play area, a studio and community room, a gym suite, an office and toilets
• first floor: changing rooms, a fitness suite and a consultation room

The entrance faces the Mere. The space between the building and the water becomes outdoor seating for the café. A new footpath links the site to Mere Park on its western edge.

The car park on the Park Road side will have:

• 58 car parking spaces
• 5 spaces for disabled drivers and 7 with electric vehicle charging, within that total
• 4 motorcycle spaces
• a covered cycle shelter

The gym is moving here from the Diss Swim Centre. The council says it has a grant of more than £1 million from the Greater Norwich Growth Board towards the move.

How it got here

The council’s own planning application, reference 2025/3866, was lodged on 15 December 2025. The key dates on the register are:

Between April and September those issues were worked through, according to a file note on the register. Norfolk County Council’s highways team asked for changes to the entrance and a wider footway along the Park Road frontage, which were made. Rainwater cannot soak away because the groundwater is high, so it will drain at a limited rate into the Diss Mere culvert under Park Road, which runs to the River Waveney.

Eleven people objected, as did the Diss Heritage Trust. Objectors said the building does not respond to its spot on the Mere, and one said it looks like a warehouse. The trust asked for a better frontage onto Park Road and different materials. Diss Town Council backed the plans.

The council says the plans were shaped by its public consultation. In it, 75% agreed soft play would benefit Diss, more than 80% welcomed a café and 65% said they would use fitness classes.

Two checks still pending

Two more applications under the permission were still waiting for a decision on 19 October. Both cover conditions that must be met before building work proper starts:

• 2026/2977: a scheme to deal with ground contamination left from the garage use (condition 11)
• 2026/2947: the construction management plan, and parking, access and wheel washing for building traffic (conditions 7 and 21)

When will it open?

The council has not given an opening date. The cost and timetable went to its Cabinet on 16 March 2026 as an exempt report, so neither has been published.

The contractor’s construction plan on the planning file, from Pentaco Construction of Norwich, is dated 9 June 2026. It set out a 47-week build from 15 June 2026 to 28 May 2027. That plan was written before permission was issued in September, so those dates no longer hold.

What it means for you

• Building work on Park Road. The contractor’s plan gives working hours of 7.30am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, with weekends only by agreement.
• No gym changes yet. The gym stays at the Swim Centre until the new building opens.
• The bus terminal across the road is due to be rebuilt in 2027 too. Read our report on the £1.25m Diss bus station plan.
• You can follow both remaining checks on our South Norfolk planning news page.