COUNCILLORS have backed the plan to demolish Temple Cowley Pools and replace it with one in Blackbird Leys, but were warned there may still be financial question marks over it.

The Labour-controlled council plans to sell the Temple Road site in Cowley to help pay for the £16.8m facility in the Leys.

But the executive member for leisure, Bob Timbs, has warned that uncertainty over Government funding might cause the council’s plans to be changed.

He told a scrutiny committee meeting at Oxford Town Hall on Monday that the redevelopment plan made good financial sense with the figures the council currently had to work with.

Then he issued a dire warning about the ability to fund the new project, and existing city pools, if the Government slashed the council’s grant this autumn.

He said: “If that happens, we might have to cut Temple Cowley Pools and another leisure centre. I’m not joking – it’s that serious.”

The special meeting of the value and performance scrutiny committee was held to re-examine the decision by the council's executive to push ahead with the new pool.

After a two-hour debate the 12-member committee voted to back the plan. The multi-million-pound project will be put out to tender.

The council hopes the new pool will be open by autumn 2012.

The result disappointed op-ponents who have mounted a bid to save the Temple Road facility.

Campaigner Nigel Gibson said: “The decision (of the executive) was unsound for a number of reasons: lack of transparency, lack of information and a bias leading to a single option with no consideration of what people want.”

The committee heard the new complex would cost the council £150,000 a year in subsidy to operator Fusion Leisure – a saving on its current subsidy levels for Temple Cowley Pools.

But Mr Gibson said the details to justify the financial argument had not been made available.

He added: “That £150,000 a year may get you what you want financially, but it won’t look after the 7,000 people in Cowley who will not go and use it.”

Scrutiny members examined 10 issues relating to the plan, set out by Liberal Democrat committee chairman councillor Stephen Brown, including the estimated usage, location, accessibility, en-vironmental credentials and the whether an ice rink could be added in future – a long-held aspiration of city Lib Dems.

Mr Brown was told pool designs would seek to ensure an ice rink could be added at a later stage.

A petition to keep Temple Cowley Pools open, handed to the council earlier this month, will be debated by full council on October 18.

But the decision to push ahead with plans for a new complex and demolish the Cowley facility will not be reconsidered.