TEMPLE Cowley Pools will still be knocked down even if a High Court challenge to the plan succeeds, a council boss has said.

Campaigners fighting to save the Temple Road baths are waiting for a judge to decide if their bid for a judicial review should be heard.

But Oxford City Council’s executive member for leisure Van Coulter said the authority would simply take the same decision again if it lost the challenge.

He said any judgement would be concerned with how the council reached the decision, and not the decision itself.

The council plans to knock down Temple Cowley Pools and sell the land for an estimated £1.5m to part-fund a new £9m swimming pool complex next to Blackbird Leys Leisure Centre in Pegasus Road.

Mr Coulter, the Labour executive board member for leisure services, said: “Even if it is won by the campaigners, it is a matter of process.

We could remake the decision.”

He said: “If the judge were to say ‘you haven’t done this particular point right’ we would say ‘we are very sorry we will go away and make sure we got it right’.”

He added: “The best leisure strategy for swimming for the city of Oxford is to build a new pool.”

Save Temple Cowley Pools campaigner Nigel Gibson said a separate campaign by residents in Blackbird Leys to make the site of the new pool site a protected Town Green could also scupper the plans.

Mr Gibson, who is leading the judicial review call, said: “It also depends on Labour keeping power in the coming elections in May.

“If people decide they haven’t been listening they will vote against Labour and that will stop it.”

The group, which believes the existing pool could be refurbished at a cost of £3m, argues the council failed to consult adequately.

Mr Gibson added: “The council has never taken any notice of what the people of Oxford want, which is to keep Temple Cowley Pools open.”

The new facility – which will also replace Blackbird Leys Pool – was to open in September but is on hold because of the Town Green and judicial review bids.

A contract with builders Wilmott Dixon is being drawn up on the condition that issues are settled.

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