An asbestos-lined swimming pool roof at a popular leisure centre will be torn down and replaced as part of a half-million pound upgrade.

Sport England has given a £137,000 grant to install solar panels on Farnham Leisure Centre with a further £450,000 in government grants to upgrade the roof – to structurally support the new fittings.

Old leisure centres are notoriously energy inefficient and the new project will help the borough in its goal to become carbon neutral, the council said.

The new solar panels are part of a larger programme to replace ageing boilers and offset the electricity demands of the new heat pumps. 

The only suitable spot for the panels is the leisure centre roof – but it requires the asbestos to be removed. 

Speaking at the August meeting of Waverley Borough Council’s executive committee, Cllr Kika Mirylees said: “It’s only part of what we are going to do with the leisure centre in order to improve in terms of our energy saving…but this is one of the most important ones.

“Other works will include the replacement of boilers with heat pumps  – which is being funded by the public sector decarbonisation scheme and will be completed in due course.

“But for now we need to get this in place.”

The meeting was warned that the time-bound grant funding was the best way the council would generate the energy saving measures needed to meet its zero carbon targets. Failure risked “significant reputational consequences”.

Cllr Mark Merryweather added: “We are living in an environment where grant funding has become increasingly competitive and increasingly fragmented and difficult to hunt out and secure.

“We took a conscious decision a few years ago to allocate support and create resources to chase after this money and its paying for itself many times over.”