REPAIRS to Otley's Chippendale Pool will cost £430,000 - £130,000 more than originally expected.

And although the money will have to come out of a total of £3 million - to be spent over two years and spread between Leeds City Council's 24 sports centres - Otley councillor Phil Coyne is confident work will take place.

Councillor Coyne (Lab, Otley and Wharfedale) said the completion of a survey, which revealed the new figure, was the first step to seeing the pool brought up to an acceptable standard.

"Although the survey comes out at substantially more than the initial £300,000 estimate, the city council remains committed to refurbishing Otley's pool," said Coun Coyne.

When plans to make urgent repairs to the pool were announced by Coun Coyne last month, angry opposition councillors argued that he had jumped the gun and that the money was not available.

Coun Coyne said: "Users of the pool should ignore the scaremongering nonsense put about by Liberal Democrat councillors Brian Jennings and Graham Kirkland.

"People should be confident that when the money becomes available in April, 2001, refurbishment will start."

A spokeswoman for Leeds City Council confirmed that approximately £430,000 needed to be spent on the refurbishment of the pool.

"The council's Asset Management Group has agreed to a provisional allocation of £3 million of capital expenditure over two years, across 24 sports centres and against a schedule of priority schemes put forward by the department of leisure services."

The spokeswoman added that leisure services planned to carry out substantial work at the pool but that a decision on how much money would be spent would be made at the council's Executive Board meeting in February.