LEISURE chief Keith Orrell has slammed protestors campaigning against plans to redevelop York's Barbican Centre.

Coun Orrell, City of York Council's Executive member for leisure and heritage, has rejected the claims of the newly-formed Save Our Barbican campaign group, which has collected a petition objecting to the plans.

He said: "It is disappointing that the new, exciting era for sports facilities across York is being undermined by the new protest group. The Barbican redevelopment will not lead to a deterioration of sporting facilities in York. In fact, the opposite is true.

"If it were not for the capital receipt to be received from the Barbican site development, the long term future of other leisure facilities, such as the Yearsley and Edmund Wilson pools, would be severely in doubt."

"Council staff have been working very hard and imaginatively to find suitable alternative venues for existing users. No one from the new protest group has asked for information from me or, as far as I am aware, from council officers. Any request would have been responded to," he said. "The group's comments about the council withholding information and lack of consultation are just plain wrong. There have been three separate consultations which were widely publicised with a huge amount of coverage in the local media including a display in the Barbican as recently as last July."

John Issitt, spokesperson for the campaign to Save Our Barbican, said as they collected signatures for their petition people had told them they did not believe the council would provide adequate alternatives to the Barbican and residents also feared the centre was being sold off to become a casino, a nightclub and a bar.

"People signing also voiced anger that most of the people who work in the Barbican are to be made redundant at the end of May, that vision of the City Walls is to be cut off by a hotel and yet another housing complex, and that traffic and parking problems can only get worse as a result," he said.

"They also, often with a despondent sigh, said that the so called 'consultation' exercises performed by the council, were yet another example of the smoke and mirrors tactics of a council determined on hustling through its own plans through its own committees without due regard to the interests and opinions of the people of York."

Updated: 10:33 Monday, March 01, 2004