YORK will host the UK Snooker Championship in December for the fifth year in a row.

It has been officially announced that Barbican Leisure Centre, the city venue embroiled in controversy since its closure last year, will stage the two-week tournament, from Monday, December 5 to Sunday, December 18.

Absolute Leisure, new owners of the centre, are opening and operating the venue specially in order to hold the prestigious championship, the second most important event on the world snooker circuit.

The Barbican facilities, including the auditorium, can be prepared for use quite quickly. All that is required is tidying up work. The snooker set-up is installed by a tournament organising company which World Snooker use to run their major events.

World Snooker are happy that the venue will be fully suitable to staging the championship and did not seek any special assurances from Absolute Leisure about the Barbican facilities being in order in time. The deal agreed between World Snooker and Absolute Leisure is for one year.

The tournament has been put back from November to December this year to fit in with BBC television schedules. The UK Championship is set to be screened from December 10 right through to the final.

The world's top 32 players plus 16 from the qualifying rounds take part in the UK, which is being sponsored for the third year running by Travis Perkins builders' merchants.

The defending champion is Scot Stephen Maguire, surprise winner after all the star names suffered shock defeats in the early rounds. New world champion Shaun Murphy, coached by Harrogate's Steve Prest, will also be in the line-up.

And former world and UK champion Ronnie O'Sullivan looks like returning. He had suggested at the end of last season that he might take a year away from snooker, but he now seems likely to compete in the coming campaign.

He played in Belfast last week in the Northern Ireland Trophy and said after his first round defeat: "I'll keep turning up and see how it goes. Everything is okay."

Leeds star Paul Hunter has won his battle against cancer and will be back on the circuit starting in October. He announced earlier this month that the medical treatment he has been undergoing has been successful.

An announcement about when tickets will go on sale for the UK Championships will be made nearer the date of the event.

Updated: 09:54 Wednesday, August 24, 2005