A NEW row has broken out over the future of the city's Victoria Leisure Centre.

Nottingham City Council is planning to close the existing facility in April, in advance of rebuilding it.

However, campaigners who fought to save the original building have re-formed their pressure group over fears it will shut earlier than expected.

The council insists it will provide adequate staffing to maintain the service and the new facility will be better than what is there now.

But Mat Anderson, campaign group spokesman, said: "After a long period of silence from the council we have learned that it intends to close the Victoria Leisure Centre at the end of March 2010 – but worse, the staff will be relocated in February making it more likely that it will close earlier than then. There are no approved plans for the new leisure centre and not even any planning permission."

Originally, the council proposed to shut the centre at the end of March 2011, but brought the date forward one year.

Mr Anderson said: "The council is doing this as part of the cost-cutting exercise. It estimates it will save £395,000 by closing the centre early, despite its promise to keep it open until 2011. This is tantamount to robbing the poorest people in the city to pay for its own ineptitude and must not be tolerated."

The council strongly denies the claim.

Hugh White, council director of sports, leisure and parks, said: "We have been able to bring forward the redevelopment and now the community gets a new facility more quickly."

The council plans to open the new leisure centre in January 2012. It is concerned the value of a new leisure centre is being overlooked. Mr White said: "The council has worked hard with the community to get a planning application into the system to redevelop the leisure centre."

As part of the process, Mr White said staff had been consulted and will be redeployed to other council-run facilities. He said some may move before the facility closes but others would stay to keep the centre going.

Mr White has also denied rumours circulating in St Ann's and Sneinton that the new facility may be built under the private finance initiative.

He said Carillion had been assigned as the construction company, but the facility would be owned and run by the council. "It is not a PFI," he said.

The Save the Victoria Baths Campaign held a public meeting last night and the group's chairman Mat Anderson said: "We want to persuade the council not to shut the centre on April 1. It is very dear to the community."

Matthew Bayles, 41, from St Ann's, said: "I was planning to start using the centre's gym. In Sneinton and St Ann's there is nothing else like this."