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D-day for Kippax Leisure Centre looming
The fate of closure threatened Kippax Leisure Centre could be known within weeks.
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City council bosses announced provisional plans last summer to shut the leisure centre in the town as well as others at Garforth, Fearnville and East Leeds.
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The local authority has been fine-tuning its proposals since December on the back of the results of a public consultation process.
And the council has said it hoped a finished report would be available in time for consideration by its decision-making executive board in July.
One option thought to have been examined is the transfer of a number of the at-risk centres to community management.
The proposals announced by the Tory and Lib Dem-controlled council in August last year included:
* Replacing Garforth, Kippax, Fearnville and East Leeds centres with two 'Well Being' bases offering health advice as well as sports and fitness facilities;
* Shutting the "undersized" pool at Middleton Leisure Centre;
* Closing South Leeds Sports Centre.
The plans were criticised by opposition councillors as an "absolute disgrace".
Council bosses, though, stressed that none of the facilities on the list would close before replacements were up-and-running.
Under their initial proposals, for example, the South Leeds site would not shut until Morley's new leisure centre opens in 2010.
Construction work is already under way on the Morley centre and a similar state-of-the-art facility in Armley, the combined cost of which will be 33m.
The council's executive board is next week also expected to approve an outlay of more than 500,000 on improvements to the city's existing Scott Hall, John Smeaton and Pudsey leisure centres.
Plans include a major refurbishment of the changing rooms at Scott Hall and the installation of new sound and light systems in the pool halls at all three sites.
The bulk of the cash for that work has come from the Government-backed Sport England agency, with the remainder being supplied by the council.
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Weather for Leeds
Saturday 19 May 2012
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