Bury St Edmunds: Multimillion-pound leisure centre could be scrapped

Plans for a multimillion-pound leisure centre look set to be put on hold, despite £2.4m already being spent.

West Suffolk Council had allocated £75m for the Western Way development on Olding Road, Bury St Edmunds.

It said "economic uncertainties around build costs and borrowing interest rates" meant there was a "financial risk".

The authority said it would invest in current leisure facilities instead, with a yearly budget of £724,000.

The council has already spent a substantial sum on the project, but Labour leader Cliff Waterman told the BBC that "a lot of that money has been spent on things that we can use again".

"We are going to lose some, but the risk that we would be taking on would be far more than that," he said.

"Council finances across the country are in a fairly strained place. Ours at the moment look all right and I want to keep it that way."

The future of the council-owned site earmarked for the new leisure centre will be looked at in 2024.

A final decision on whether to scrap the project will be made by the full council.

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