POTENTIALLY hazardous electrical fittings could force the closure of Otley Civic Centre.

An electrical engineer's report has revealed that the whole building should be rewired to meet health and safety regulations.

Electrical circuits are described as 'antiquated and hazardous' and 'total replacement' costing in the region of £165,000 is strongly advised.

Now, councillors fear, unless hundreds of thousands of pounds is spent on the centre in the near future, that the building will have to close on safety grounds.

Centre manager Malcolm Scott told the council's Civic Centre Committee that both staff and users of the centre had become concerned about the decrepit state of the wiring.

At last week's meeting, he said at times overloading of the circuits had caused all the lights to go out, and he pointed out some light fittings were made of bakelite - a plastic popular more than 50 years ago.

He said: "The staff and members of the public within the building are beginning to feel it is hazardous. There has been occasions when the trip switch has gone off due to the overloading.

"We find that if the kitchen boilers are on at the same time as someone is using the main hall, the lights can all go off.

"To tell the truth, the elec-trics have had it."

Councillor Phil Coyne said if there was a real risk of someone being electrocuted or a fire breaking out, then something should be done.

"We need to know if there is an immediate risk and if we are at the stage where the building needs to close."

Town clerk Les Cross told councillors that it was difficult to say exactly what stage of de-terioration the electrical sys-tem was without a further discussion with the engineer.

The town council is currently divided over the future of the civic centre.

Labour members want to fully refurbish the building, but Liberal Democrat and Conservative members believe it would be a waste to spend vast sums of money on the building and that the council should be aiming for a re-placement building.

They say a purpose built centre could be built on the Ashfield Works site, but Labour members say that is out of the question and that the civic centre is the only building the town is ever likely to get.

Meanwhile, an architects re-port on the centre has revealed a catalogue of problems, including major faults with the roof

The report, commissioned by the council for £5,000 to see how much needed to be done for the building to comply with the Disabled Discrimination Act, has suggested that it needs around £1 million spent on it.