Water World, the £7 million leisure pool that opened in York just 18 months ago, is now closed to the public for almost half the week.

The fun complex at Monks Cross, which features water chutes, slides and a wave lagoon, is now only open for general use for a total of seven hours on Wednesday and Friday evenings, plus 10 am to 5pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

Low visitor numbers on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, coupled with the high cost of employing a large number of lifeguards around the flume rides and pools, mean it is no longer viable for it to publicly open on those days, says general manager Jill Heseltine.

She stressed that the complex was still available for group bookings at closed times, and special needs groups were also being encouraged to come to make use of the facilities.

But the decision to close to the general public has saddened a leading councillor at Ryedale District Council, which met the £7 million total cost of developing Water World out of capital receipts before passing the pool to City of York Council under local government re-organisation.

"It's very unfortunate. It's not what was intended would happen," said Councillor Frank Wiggle, chairman of Ryedale's leisure and marketing committee.

"We hoped the York council would take over responsibility and operate it as we intended to do. It could be that the economic climate has changed so that York cannot run it the way it was planned. Obviously I feel it's sad this has happened."

Jill Heseltine said Civic Leisure, the private leisure company which took on the lease for Water World from City of York Council in 1997, had agreed the cut in opening hours with the local authority for a 12-month trial period.

She stressed that Water World was still attracting big crowds of visitors on the remaining evenings and at weekends, who thoroughly enjoyed the facilities.

Charlie Croft, acting director of York's leisure services department, said visitor numbers had fallen as low as 15 per hour on the three evenings, and it had been decided to actively boost numbers by setting up an alternative programme to encourage special groups to book for the fun rides area.

He said the conventional pool was also to be used for a schools swimming development programme and for a cardiac rehabilitation scheme.

The pool, which will still open every weekday during school holidays, was built in the early to mid 1990s by Ryedale District Council.

But the Monks Cross area went into the control of the new City of York Council under local authority re-organisation, and York subsequently appointed London-based private operators Civic Leisure Ltd to run Water World.

The pool opened in July 1997, ten months later than planned, while a series of safety concerns were ironed out.

see COMMENT 'Water World is not sunk yet'

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