End of an era for sports centres

Knottingley Sports Centre and Castleford Swimming Pool shut on Friday, despite backlash from both communities.

The Knottingley facility has served the town since 1969 and has been the home of Knottingley Amateur Swimming Club for more than four decades.

Groups and classes which were based there, along with those that were at Castleford Pool, which opened in 1983, have now been moved to other leisure facilities.

More than 4,200 people signed two separate petitions to keep the centres open and protests were also staged in both towns.

But the local authority said the “dilapidated” sites cost more than £750k per year to maintain.

It is drawing up designs for a new £14.8m leisure centre in Pontefract Park, which it said will replace both facilities as well as the current Pontefract Pool.