CAMPAIGNERS fighting to save Queensbury Pool from the axe have hit out at Bradford Council after it gave a wildly inaccurate figure for the cost of roof repairs to the building.

The pool is tipped for closure in 2019, but the Council has said it would be interested to hear from anyone who may want to take on the future management of the pool.

A meeting earlier in the year heard the building has a £350,000 maintenance backlog, leading those fighting to save the pool to be wary of a community asset transfer.

In a letter to Council leader Susan Hinchcliffe, Councillor Sarah Ferriby and Phil Barker, assistant director of sport and culture for Bradford Council, campaigner Sharon Johnson asked: "How have you, as our Council, allowed this facility to fall into such a terrible state of disrepair?

"How can you have allowed it to get to the stage whereby the backlog maintenance bill runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds? How can you then expect the community to want to take this on?"

A reply from Phil Barker said: "I must point out that the Council has spent a considerable amount of money maintaining Queensbury Pool over the last five years alone. Repairs to the roof in 2014 cost in excess of £600,000."

But a Freedom of Information request submitted to Bradford Council by Mrs Johnson revealed this figure to be hugely overinflated.

Its response detailed that roofing works to the pool actually cost £186,095, including £69,875 spent on dry rot present within the roof structure.

In an email sent in June to Steve Hartley, the Council's strategic director, Mrs Johnson raised concerns over the difference in figures and said: "Perhaps we could suggest that the missing £413,905 be used to complete the backlog of repairs that have built up whilst this building has been under Council control.

"If the Council have budgeted and told us £600,000 for roof repairs and only spent £186,095, there must be a surplus that we can use for the benefit of 17 primary schools currently using our pool (the only Council leisure facility in Queensbury and its surrounding areas)."

Mrs Johnson says she has not yet received a reply to the letter, but a Bradford Council spokesman told the Telegraph & Argus: “The original figure of £600,000 for roof repairs was sent in error.

“The figure of £634,534 was the total spent on repairs and maintenance to the whole pool complex in the last six years, of which £186,000 was spent repairing the roof."

In response, Mrs Johnson said she was "gobsmacked".

"They should not be making errors like that," she said.

"How can anybody just allow that figure. It's just diabolical."

She said she didn't think the Council was "fit for purpose".