PROTESTERS claimed today that the decision to scrap a Barbican replacement pool breaches York's Local Plan - and warned they could take the issue to the High Court.

Save Our Barbican campaign members said they were talking to their lawyer about whether it could apply for a judicial review of the City of York Council proposal.

Spokesman Ernie Dickinson, above right, said that under the Local Plan, leisure facilities should not be scrapped unless it could be shown there was no demand for them, or an alternative was provided.

But he claimed that there had clearly been a demand for the Barbican pool, and the alternative suggested by the council - a new pool in east York, built in partnership with the university - was "pie in the sky".

He said it would depend on the university's campus expansion plan going ahead, but this was going to a public inquiry later this year and might not win approval.

Coun Dave Merrett, the council's Labour leader, has also raised the possibility that the decision could breach the Local Plan, and might be subject to judicial review.

But the authority today denied the claims, saying: "Alternative leisure facilities will be pursued through the partnership with the university."

Meanwhile, it has emerged that fresh planning permission may be needed for changes to the proposed redevelopment of the Barbican site.

Barbican Venture (York) Ltd is suggesting several changes to the original plan which has already been granted permission by the council. These include building a new access road into the site from Barbican Road, turning some of the proposed apartments into an 80-bedroom care home, and building an extra 40 bedrooms and a swimming pool at the high-quality hotel.

The council said that Barbican Venture was buying the main site on the basis of the existing planning permission.

"After the sale, if it wishes to bring forward any variations to the agreed scheme, depending on the detail of the design, then it will need to bring forward those variations through the planning process in the normal way," said a spokesman.

Work could start by late spring says developer

WORK on redeveloping York's Barbican site could begin by late spring, the developers said today.

The project to build apartments, a care home and a hotel could proceed at the same time as the refurbishment of the adjacent auditorium, said Andrew Cossins, chairman of Barbican Venture (York) Ltd.

But while the auditorium work - to be carried out by another company, Absolute Leisure - could be finished by late autumn, he said work on the rest of the site could take between 12 and 18 months to complete.

He revealed that during the delays caused by legal and other objections from the Save Our Barbican campaign, the amount of money offered by housebuilders for the residential part of the development had almost halved.

The company had looked again at what was being proposed on the site, and decided to halve the number of apartments and create a new care home in the other residential buildings.

He admitted that the last couple of years, during which protesters fought a high-profile campaign against the scheme, even taking the planning decision to the High Court, had been an "emotional rollercoaster."

Updated: 09:18 Saturday, January 28, 2006