SCORES of campaigners have written to the Government to demand a public inquiry into plans to formally abandon a replacement swimming pool near York's Barbican Centre.

They claim a decision by York councillors last month to change a crucial legal agreement over the redevelopment of the Barbican site is in breach of the city's Local Plan.

City of York Council originally intended to build a pool on the nearby Kent Street coach park to compensate for the closure of the Barbican baths in 2004, but earlier this year agreed instead to spend £6.4 million from the developers on providing new and improved swimming facilities elsewhere.

Officers warned that if they pushed ahead and demanded a pool at the Barbican, the authority would have no money to refurbish York's existing Edmund Wilson and Yearsley pools. Officers said last month that if councillors did not agree to change a section 106 legal agreement, which demanded the replacement pool, the developers might pull out of the whole scheme, causing even more delays in redeveloping the Barbican site.

Ernie Dickinson, chairman of the campaign group Save Our Barbican (SOB), said today he believed that more than 100 people may have written to the Government office in Leeds recently in support of a letter sent by SOB.

In this letter, SOB calls for the latest proposals to be "called in," which would involve an inquiry being held with a final decision being taken by the Secretary of State. It claims the latest plans for the Barbican site are "unrecognisable" from the scheme for which permission was granted in 2004, and no longer comply with several planning policy guidelines.

It says that under the Local Plan, permission should only be granted for a development leading to loss of sports facilities where it can be demonstrated that a need for them no longer exists or that appropriate alternative facilities exist within the catchment area.

"Clearly a need continues to exist, and appropriate alternative facilities do not exist for practically all activities," it said.

Council leader Steve Galloway said today that two planning decisions had been taken last month, the first involving a "minor change" to a Section 106 agreement which did not require Government approval, although the council had notified it.

The second change had "un-linked" the auditorium's modernisation from the timetable for development of the rest of the site.

This could be regarded as a change to consent and had to be notified to the Government, but it would only intervene in matters of strategy planning importance and it was "inconceivable" this change could be so viewed.

"I regret that SOB are still objecting to our plans to improve swimming and sports facilities in the city, and increasingly appear to be doing so for party political reasons," said.