YORK’S political rulers have been accused of hypocrisy after issuing their support for the city’s new £9 million swimming pool.

City of York Council leader James Alexander and Coun Sonja Crisp, cabinet member for leisure, were pictured visiting the state-of-the-art facility at the University of York’s Sports Village to view progress on the scheme, which they described as “fantastic”.

But Coun Nigel Ayre, the Liberal Democrat group’s leisure spokesman, hit out at Labour over its previous “opposition” to increasing the authority’s contribution to the scheme by £1 million before they came to power earlier this year, and accused the party of “claiming credit for something that would never have happened if they had their way”.

He said: “Coun Crisp seems to have completely forgotten that not only was the financial contribution agreed by the Lib Dem executive, but the Labour group actually opposed the council’s contribution to the scheme on two different occasions.

“The Sports Village pool is only going ahead because we pushed forward with the plans in the face of opposition from Labour.”