CAMPAIGNERS are urging fitness fans to turn out in force at the next full council meeting when Dudley’s councillors will debate the future of the borough’s leisure centres.

Leisure centre users collected 4,544 names on a petition urging Dudley Council to rethink it’s proposal to close Dudley and Halesowen leisure centres and Stourbridge’s Crystal Leisure Centre and replace them with two new ones - a move they say will fuel obesity and starve communities.

As a result - the plan is now set to be debated at the next full council meeting at Dudley Council House on Monday April 10 from 6pm and the Save Our Leisure Centres group wants as many people as possible to turn up.

Former councillor Tracy Wood, the council’s former cabinet member for leisure, is heading up the campaign to save all three facilities and said: "By proposing to reduce the number of leisure centres from three to two means one of our towns and communities is going to be devastated.

“The Save Our Leisure Centres group wholly disagrees with these proposals and is calling on all Dudley citizens to turn up and support the campaign on Monday April 10.

“We are calling for the council to keep three leisure centres, with three pools in our three town centres.

"Reducing swimming capacity in the borough and moving the centres out of town will make them less accessible due to transport and availability of swimming time.

"Children as young as four in swimming clubs are waiting till 8pm at night to be able to access pools in the borough.”

Campaigners are also worried the loss of a leisure centre would only serve to increase obesity problems in the borough - particularly with the opening of new fast food outlets in Stourbridge, opposite King Edward VI College.

They are also concerned closure of Halesowen Leisure Centre would be a big blow to Dudley Special Olympics who have used the pool there for many years.

And Phil Steven of Brierley Hill Swimming Club added: "The pools at Dudley Leisure Centre were extensively refurbished in 2004.There has been no mention of this by the council, have they conveniently forgot?"

The council claims all three existing leisure centres are ageing and in need of costly repairs and maintenance, with leisure bosses saying they need to look at new ways of making leisure provision in the borough accessible, affordable and competitive - against a backdrop of decreased funding from central government.

They say the proposed two replacement facilities would be state-of-the-art with 24-hour gyms and 25-metre swimming pools plus badminton courts, studios and changing facilities.

Bosses insist all three existing facilities would be retained until new centres are built.

Sites off Lye Bypass and Dudley’s Flood Street car park could potentially accommodate the new leisure centres as they are already owned by the local authority but no decisions have been made yet and council chiefs insist there will be plenty of chance to scrutinise the proposals as they are developed.