TWO council-run swimming pools in Blackburn face closure to save cash.

Shadsworth Leisure Centre and Daisyfield Pools will shut next year unless someone steps forward to shoulder the £730,000-a-year cost of maintaining and running them.

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Local councillors Tony Humphrys and Zamir Khan have expressed concern at the proposals contained in a leisure spending review set to be rubber-stamped on Thursday.

Any closure of Shadsworth’s leisure centre and its 25-metre pool will be highly controversial as Labour campaigned against plans to shut it, brought forward by the Tory-led coalition in charge of Blackburn with Darwen Council, in 2010.

After Labour took control of the town hall in September that year, they kept the centre open with reduced hours.

Borough leisure boss Damian Talbot will propose a consultation exercise on the closure plans to the full Council Forum on Thursday.

He admitted that unless other organisations could be found to run the pools at no cost to the council they would be forced to close.

Cllr Talbot blamed government cuts in Whitehall grants to the council for the need to look for alternative providers to pay for the pools.

Blackburn Centurions Swimming Club spokesman Steve Baron said it was ‘concerned’ at the news.

Borough Tory group leader Mike Lee said: “The Labour group running the council must have know for years they would have to close Shadsworth.

“It was politically expedient for them to campaign to keep it open in 2010.

“They have spent five years wasting money to keep it open which could have been spent elsewhere.

“They cannot blame the government for the closure of these two pools as I doubt they will find someone else to bear the full cost of keeping them open.

“They make the decisions on where to spend the council’s money.”

Cllr Talbot’s ‘Update on Leisure Review’ report to Thursday’s meeting said the new Blackburn Leisure Centre, which opened last year, and its 2010 Darwen counterpart provided sufficient capacity for borough swimmers.

It says: “Therefore any reductions in pool provision would have to be focussed on Daisyfield Pools and Shadsworth Leisure Centre as these centres are significantly older (built in 1906 and 1974 respectively) with dated facilities and therefore less attractive to users.”

It will authorise a series of consultations and ‘explore’ the possibility of them being operated differently and the anticipated impact of their closure.

The exercise will run until October 31 with a final plan submitted to the Council Forum on December 3 for decision.

Cllr Talbot said: “We do not want to close these pools but faced with unprecedented cuts in Whitehall grants from the government, we may have no choice.

“We would hope to find another operator to take them over and keep them open for public use as has happened successfully in other boroughs such as Wigan.

“It would have to be at no cost to the council so we can make the full £731,000 saving to take effect in 2016/2017.

“The council could not foresee the unprecedented level of government cuts and we did well to keep Shadsworth open for another five years.”

Mr Baron said the club used both centres for training young swimmers and added: “We would be concerned at any loss of pool time and will discuss this matter with council officers.”

Shadsworth’s Labour Cllr Humphrys, who stood with a loud-hailer outside the town hall in 2010 opposing the proposed closure of the estate’s leisure centre, said: “I am deeply concerned by this proposal.

“Shadsworth residents will also be deeply concerned about a vital leisure asset to the estate.

“I hope we can find someone else to take over and run the centre and pool at no cost to the council and council taxpayer.”

Audley Labour Cllr Khan said: “I am concerned. Daisyfield Pools is important to the local community.”

Blackburn Labour MP Kate Hollern, a former borough council leader. said: “The council has done everything it can to keep these pools open, in Shadsworth’s case for an extra five years.

“In view of the latest government cuts, sadly closure may be inevitable.”

Cllr Talbot said it might prove possible to save the ‘dry-side’ of Shadsworth Leisure Centre with sports hall, gym, squash courts and dance studios but not the two pools which cost more to run.

He said: “We have excellent leisure facilities in Blackburn and Darwen and are making the best of a bad situation, protecting what we can.

“We know our options are limited with more funding cuts expected though that won’t stop us from taking everything that is suggested seriously.

“A Sport England review showed we had some of the best swimming provision in the north west region with 11 pools, four owned by the council and the others in schools and private sector hands.”