COUNCILLORS will be urged next week to reconsider rushing through a "cut-price" sale of York's Barbican site.

Labour councillors say they want to prevent council leader Steve Galloway "blundering on regardless, in his usual high-handed way".

They are proposing to set up a Scrutiny Panel to ensure the people of York get the best deal for the site - both in terms of the value gained from the sale and also the provision of public swimming facilities.

But Coun Galloway said today that the decision to sell the site had already been taken, with contracts set to be exchanged in the next few days. "It's too late," he said.

And he called on Labour not to indulge in any more "guerrilla tactics", but to unite behind efforts to provide new swimming facilities in Acomb and on the eastern side of the city as quickly as possible.

The council is selling part of the Barbican site for £7 million, instead of the £9.5 million it originally expected to get from Barbican Venture York Ltd.

Coun Janet Looker, Labour's resources spokeswoman, who is putting the scrutiny panel proposal to a full meeting of councilors next week, said it would provide an opportunity to conduct a proper consultation with the people of York, so that their views were properly represented and the best options properly investigated.

"The present deal is set up so that more land is sold for far less money than was ever proposed either by the Labour Group when they originally negotiated a deal, or by the Lib Dems in their recently collapsed deal.

"More valuable land, for less money - where is the good economic sense or the value for money that the council is required to achieve?"

She claimed money had been wasted because the Lib Dems had been desperate to get the sale through as quickly as possible in the last financial year.

"As this has not happened, we should stop and look again at this terrible deal that the Lib Dems have struck to see what other options are available."

Meanwhile, Labour has also accused the Lib Dems of hypocrisy in their response to the Regional Government Office's draft Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS).

The party's leisure spokesman Dave Evans, pictured, said that the council had said it welcomed the policy on health and recreation, and in particular the need to safeguard existing sports and recreation facilities.

He claimed the Lib Dems seemed to have no concept of their own policy, after they had recently decided to remove the city's primary leisure and swimming facility at the Barbican.

Committee row as authority debates new constitution

A ROW has broken out over plans to sort out places on new City of York Council committees - on the same night a proposed new constitution for the authority is to be debated.

City of York Council's Labour group says it is concerned that the process - which will be discussed at a special authority meeting at the end of the month - is being "rushed through".

Labour leader Dave Merrett claims the Lib Dem plans to nominate for positions on committees which will run under a new constitution "assumes that the proposals will go through regardless and completely ignores the democratic process".

"This whole process of consultation has been rushed and is inadequate in terms of time to consult political groups," he said.

"The process proposed presumes that there will be full agreement to the current draft without further amendment but with no consensus between the main political groups on a number of major issues the Lib Dems are simply riding roughshod over the democratic process."

Council leader Steve Galloway said: "An attempt has been made to find a consensus on new processes but Labour's submitted view was so extreme - involving their effectively running the council using bogus "scrutiny committees" - that there was no room for further compromise.

"Dave Merrett was so interested in reaching an agreement that he failed to attend on two of the three dates when meetings between the group leaders were scheduled."

Coun Galloway said the main thrust of the change in constitution was to streamline the decision making processes of the council - making it leaner and quicker.

Updated: 10:44 Wednesday, April 05, 2006