YORK’S new multi-million-pound swimming pool has moved a stroke closer to becoming reality after planning officers gave it the thumbs-up.

The £9 million scheme to create a 25-metre pool at the University of York’s Heslington East campus expansion has been recommended for approval and City of York Council’s planning committee will make a final decision tomorrow.

If it goes ahead, it will give the city its first competition-standard public pool, boasting eight lanes as well as a training pool, health and fitness facilities a floodlit full-size football pitch and surfaces for five-a-side football matches.

The council is providing £3 million towards the cost of the scheme, which is expected to create 30 full and part-time jobs, with the university contributing £5 million and Sport England having agreed a £1 million grant.

A report on the application by the authority’s development management officer, Kevin O’Connell, which will go before the planning meeting, said the pool would be open to the public for at least 70 hours a week and is intended to form the first phase of a Sports Village at the new Heslington East campus.

Spaces for 207 cars would be provided to the north of the building and there will also be room for 80 bikes.

The university is also set to be asked to provide detailed landscaping plans for the site after the council’s environment, conservation and sustainable development section claimed the proposals “lack visual appeal” and the parking layout might harm the look of nearby Kimberlow Hill. The university will be in charge of running and maintaining the pool for the first 25 years of its life and, subject to approval this week, work is expected to start in the spring and be completed next summer.

Officers have also recommended giving the go-ahead for plans to create a new section of road near the university which would link the Grimston Bar Park&Ride site with bus stops at Field Lane and provide an access route to the pool, and an application to build a new Langwith College complex at Heslington East which is earmarked to house 647 students.

The two applications will be discussed at the same meeting.