LABOUR councillors are planning to launch a blistering attack next week on the way York's Liberal Democrat administration has handled the Barbican Centre "fiasco."

An opposition motion to Tuesday's full council meeting claims City of York Council has 'mismanaged' the project and 'alienated' residents.

The party's leisure spokesman, Councillor Dave Evans, said Labour wanted a proper debate about what had gone wrong with the redevelopment of the Barbican site, and he hoped the administration would "find the courage to acknowledge their failures and apologise to residents."

But Liberal Democrat leisure spokesman, Coun Keith Orrell, today hit back, accusing his opponents of negativity and inaccuracy, and claiming that all York's swimming pools were in a poor state of repair because of a lack of investment over the years by the socialists.

The redevelopment of the Barbican site has been delayed by legal challenges to the council's decision to grant planning permission and by delays in obtaining a late licence. But the High Court recently threw out an application for judicial review of the permission, and the council granted the late licence earlier this week.

Coun Evans said: "We want to find out why the (Barbican) replacement pool has got smaller and smaller, whilst the planned flats development has got bigger and bigger.

"We also want the Lib Dems to take responsibility for their failures - and stop trying to blame residents."

He claimed that the problems with the project had been so many and so wide-ranging that it "beggared belief" that the Lib Dems were still refusing to take responsibility for the "fiasco."

"The ambitious county-standard pool Labour were planning to build has been replaced with Lib Dem plans for a measly pool only 11 metres wide," he said.

"Residents are being ignored and left bewildered as the saga drags on. And finally, with so much uncertainty and delay, land values have crashed leaving the entire project teetering on the brink of failure."

Coun Orrell said he was always happy to take part in constructive debate which led to improvements for residents.

"Sadly the Labour motion is a mixture of negativity, inaccuracies and comments that ignore the results of public consultation and the decisions of his own Government's Regional Office," he said.

"Coun Evans forgets that it took Labour over three years to develop their plans for the Barbican after their proposal to close swimming pools was roundly rejected by the people of York. I look forward to the debate and hope that Labour have some constructive comments to make."

Updated: 09:41 Saturday, July 23, 2005