THE fight to save the crumbling Temple Cowley swimming pool in East Oxford will become a key election battleground, voters have been promised.

Oxford City Council wants to close the pool to help fund a new facility in Blackbird Leys, which would open in 2012 and cost as much as £8m.

But opposition councillors have promised to do all it takes to save Temple Cowley Pool – which some have claimed was being intentionally run down – from closure.

The facility attracts about 150,000 visitors a year, compared about 60,000 at Barton Pool.

Green city councillor Nuala Young said: “We won’t stop the campaign and will take it to the electorate in May.

“It’s a pool that is much valued by people and we do worry they (the city council) are intentionally running it down to make the closure more acceptable to people. I’m determined because I think there is a way round this.

“It seems totally unwise and unfair that money should be put into Ferry Pool and Barton Pool, where there are very few users, and Temple Cowley Pool has been left to decay.”

The council wants to close Temple Cowley and Blackbird Leys swimming pools and use the money from the sale of the sites to build a new facility next to Blackbird Leys Leisure Centre.

It wants to open the new pool, which would include a general swimming pool and an eight-lane competition pool, in time for the London Olympics in 2012.

On Wednesday, the council agreed to spend £200,000 on advanced project costs, which include the design of the new pool.

Fusion, the independent trust which now runs civic leisure facilities in Oxford, would be responsible for overseeing the project and contributing towards its overall cost.

City council leader Bob Price said: “We have put money into Temple Cowley over the past two years to tackle the problems with the heating and ventilation and put in a new gym studio.

“There is absolutely no intention of running it down over the two or three years ahead.

“What we are not doing is investing large amounts of new money in a pool that has passed its sell-by date.

“We are aware the Greens and Lib Dems have made it an issue locally and we expect the public to come to their conclusion within the context of an election campaign.”

Half the city council’s 48 seats are up for grabs in May.

Last month, an online petition was set up to save Temple Cowley Pool.

City Liberal Democrat group leader Stephen Brown said: “Temple Cowley Pool is in a dreadful state, but we are committed to retaining something in the Cowley area and we are looking at it as a long-term project.”

gsheldrick@oxfordmail.co.uk