HUNDREDS of people have frozen or cancelled their membership of a Selby leisure centre which was ravaged by fire earlier this year.

The huge blaze which tore through Abbey Leisure Centre in February caused damage running into hundreds of thousands of pounds. It is not yet clear whether the facility can be repaired or will have to be completely rebuilt.

A report by Wigan Leisure and Cultural Trust, which operates leisure facilities on behalf of Selby District Council, has now said a “high proportion” of the centre’s members have either put their payments on hold since it closed or gone elsewhere.

The centre had 2,700 gym members at the time of the fire, and the company said 2,000 of these had been retained, describing this as “extremely positive”.

The council said it would be “unreasonable and unsupportable” to keep taking payments from members when leisure and fitness facilities were out of action.

A spokesman said: “As a result, subscriptions were frozen in the immediate aftermath of the fire.

“Some members chose to make alternative arrangements, cancelled their memberships and went elsewhere, but the vast majority have stuck with us. Thanks to the fast work of the council, WLCT and our respective insurers, we are now in a position to offer a substantial new fitness and health programme from the new gym and fitness centre at Portholme Road and we are keeping our retained members fully informed of when that facility will open.”

He said the council and the trust had insurance cover for loss of income and neither organisation will “suffer financial loss” due to members being lost or subscriptions frozen.