THE embattled Yearsley Pool costs an average of £121 per hour to run, but makes an average of just £75 per hour, campaigners and councillors were told.

Details of the current finance and usage figures for the pool were shared with the Yearsley Pool Scrutiny Group at City of York Council by the centre's current manager Simon Luck on Tuesday, March 24.

He said York remains one of the best "swimming cities" in the country, with 10 per cent of adults swimming once a week.

But his report to the committee shows the pool's income from casual swimmers has fallen since 2009/10 when the pool made £197,000 from casual swimming, to 2013/14 when that income was £167,000.

And although the timetable can be tweaked to bring in more swimmers, the pool could have to close for certain periods to save on running costs, he added.

But although the figures also show Yearsley Pool earns a significant amount from clubs hiring the pool - £57,453 a year - the committee heard that no clubs were consulted on the design of the new pool at the Community Stadium.

The committee's chairman Keith Aspden said: "It surprises me a little that if a decision was being made on the pool which is heavily used by the clubs they were not consulted."

Officers said that with the contract being negotiated for the design, build and operation of the new stadium and its facilities, they could not bring others into the negotiations.

They also admitted they had never looked into bringing volunteers into Yearsley Pool to help keep costs down.

And campaigner Fiona Evans, who has been fighting for the future of the pool for many years, said the single year of attendance figures was not enough to understand underlying factors and long-term trends.

She and other campaigners said costs could easily be cut at the centre by changing the management structure, and by trimming extra costs for things like maintenance and repairs by bringing them in-house.