A site may have been found for a new city centre super-pool, after the Council ruled out building one in the former Odeon.

The Telegraph & Argus can exclusively reveal that Bradford Council is in talks to open the major leisure facility, a replacement for the Richard Dunn Sports Centre, on a site currently occupied by an engineering company.

The Council has approached precision machining firm Wetherby Engineering with an offer to buy its base at Britannia Mills, Portland Street, Bradford – near Trafalgar House police station.

But the firm is still considering the offer and has not yet agreed to the sale.

Wetherby Engineering manager Charles Wyatt said: “At the moment the Council have approached us, but no decision has been made.”

He said the firm was considering the possibility of relocating elsewhere.

He said: “We have looked at it but, as I say, no decision has been made. There is no definite proposal as yet.”

Mr Wyatt declined to say how much the Council had offered for the site, but said their approach was made recently.

The plan for a new city centre pool forms part of a wider shake-up of leisure facilities across the district.

The centre would have a 25-metre, eight-lane main pool, a learner pool and a diving pool, with associated games and studio space.

It would replace the ailing Richard Dunn Sports Centre at Odsal, which Bradford Council’s executive member for sport, Councillor Andrew Thornton, has described as a “black hole” in the authority’s finances.

But the Richard Dunn centre would not close until the new pool had opened.

The shake-up also includes proposals to close or pull out of community pools at Bingley, Bowling and Queensbury, and open three new ones in different areas.

Coun Thornton declined to comment on the Council’s offer to Wetherby Engineering, citing commercial confidentiality. But he said the authority hoped to take the full plan to a public consultation this summer, by which time they would have to have identified where any new pools would go.

He said: “We want to conduct a full public consultation about the proposals when we are in a situation when we have definite sites we can consult on.”

e-mail: claire.armstrong@telegraphandargus.co.uk