A planned £25 million overhaul of Perth swimming pool could be dead in the water after council chiefs announced their intention to withdraw funding.
Live Active Leisure (LAL), the council’s arms-length body behind the PH20 project, said it was “extremely disappointed” with budget proposals to axe spending on the new pool.
Perth and Kinross Council’s Tory-led administration said budgets for several projects, including PH20, need to be trimmed to pay for a £50 million rebuild of Perth High School.
If approved at capital budget talks next week, the move will leave Live Active Leisure bosses scrabbling for alternative funding sources.
Opposition councillors have welcomed progress on the Perth High development, but said the council should adopt an alternative spending plan which does not “unfairly disadvantage” other schemes.
Council leader Murray Lyle told The Courier that “sacrifices” need to be made to fund the secondary school project.
Proposals to build new primary schools at Oudenarde and Pitlochry are also being shelved.
Slashing the PH20 budget by £5 million will leave project leaders facing a £15 million shortfall.
Mike Robinson, chairman of Live Active Leisure, said: “Understandably, Live Active Leisure are extremely disappointed with the proposal that the PH2O project should no longer receive capital investment from the Perth the Kinross Council Capital Budget.
“We await the actual decision next week, and clarification from officers to understand where this leaves the council’s commitment to replacing the pool and ice rink, as they have made it abundantly clear that they accept this as an essential and cost-neutral project.”
Mr Robinson said: “We will continue working with the council to investigate alternative funding options, as we have been for some time, in particular Prudential Borrowing, without which the project could never have gone ahead anyway.”
Councillor Dave Doogan, leader of the local SNP group, said they were working on an alternative budget plan which would pay for Perth High, but not at a significant cost to other key projects.
He said: “The need to replace Perth High School in the short term is beyond debate and we in the SNP have already initiated this ambition by allocating £10m in our 2017 budget motion to begin the process of replacing this school.
“We will ensure in our budget that Perth High is replaced as soon as possible but we will do so in a way which does not unfairly disadvantage other key projects around Perth and Kinross.”
He said: “We need to maintain the momentum of investment in Perth and Kinross started under the SNP and we need to do so with a continued balance between affordability and the benefits which will accrue to our current and future populations locally.
“The SNP have shown the Tories how capital investment should be done, whether they manage to deliver for Perth and Kinross still remains to be seen.”
Councillors will rule on the budget proposals at their meeting on Wednesday.
