Campaigners working to save public baths from closure hope to step-up the fight and gather more support.

Residents of Queensbury are invited to a public meeting on Thursday, January 23, as Bradford UKIP announced it is backing the push to save the village’s pool.

Bradford UKIP chairman Jason Smith, who hopes to be elected to represent the ward at this year’s Bradford Council election, said he had spoken with campaign organisers and started a petition which has been given to businesses.

Although a Save Queensbury Swimming Baths petition has been running since September, when Bradford Council announced its leisure shake-up plans, Mr Smith said a more co-ordinated approach was needed.

“We’ve had a lot of people doing different things, people doing petitions, but they’ve been running independently and once it becomes fragmented it can lose its momentum,” he said.

Under Council proposals, four leisure centres could close – the Richard Dunn Sports Centre at Odsal and pools in Bowling, Bingley and Queensbury. All four would be replaced by four new-build swimming pools, within the city of Bradford, at locations to be announced.

Mr Smith said: “In UKIP we are proposing to use a portion of the money to instead renovate our local pools, use modern technology to cut down their operating costs and keep local services local. We will fight tooth and nail to protect our local pools and ask all local people to support us.”

Councillor Michael Walls (Con, Queensbury) said he and other councillors had been working with the campaign groups and copies of a petition in shops and venues across Queensbury had “thousands” of signatures.

* The public meeting about Queensbury Pool is at Holy Trinity Church, West End, Queensbury, on Thursday, January 23, at 7pm. The pool campaign group also has an online petition.