Historic Levenshulme Baths being demolished to make way for affordable homes

Demolition plans for Levenshulme Baths are set to begin in spring to create space for 34 new affordable homes.

Manchester council reveal in a recent document that the historical Levenshulme Baths are set to be demolished 105 years after it opened to make way for new housing. The homes will be available to let at ‘Manchester Living Rent’ and will consist of either 1, 2 or 3 bedrooms. The homes will be available at a rate either at or below the local house allowance level.

The council document also provides statistics on the housing market emphasising this build will meet the demands for the 430 households that are currently on the housing register in Levenshulme and waiting for social housing to become available. \The population of Levenshulme has grown by 20% over the last decade and only 460 new homes have been built over the same period, 125 of which are apart of the affordable house scheme. These homes will contribute to the overall goal of 10,000 new affordable homes.

Planning for new housing in Levenshulme was submitted in December 2025, demolition is due to begin in the spring of 2026 and is expected to be completed by the winter of 2027. Despite this, locals are sad to hear about the demolition of the historic baths.

A Levenshulme resident has shared her memories growing up visiting Levenshulme Baths for swimming lessons and in the summer. Nadia Olechowska said: “I used to do swimming lessons there with my friends. For the kids and the mothers, it was just good, wasn’t it? Because it wasn’t too expensive and it was something to do in the summertime.”

She also described how the building is unique and important to the community of Levenshulme.

 “There was always a very specific smell in there, it was kind of run down even when it was fully functioning, but it was one of them places that just had it’s weird kind of rustic charm, if you will. One of them shabby kind of places but it had its charms,” she said.

Nadia also believes demolition is the wrong solution, saying that “there’s tonnes of things that they could have done, a community building, even a shop, they could have done something with it, I think knocking it down is one of the worst things they could do.”

Levenshulme Baths was built and opened in 1921 and is famously known as the pool that Sunny Lowry trained to swim the English Channel in 1933. The former public baths were a staple of the Levenshulme community and later added a sauna, steam room, and a gym. In 2012 Manchester council announced the baths would close along with the local library due to spending cuts. Despite campaigns to save the historic baths, the baths closed its doors for the final time in 2016 and has remained vacant ever since.

The baths over recent years have suffered significant fire damage and is a historic part of Levenshulme’s history that will be fondly remembered by the community.