AMBITIOUS plans to improve an Ilkley based outdoor learning centre will have to go back to the drawing board after the project came in almost £750,000 over budget.

Bradford Council had hoped to expand Nell Bank, a centre where children and their families can learn about nature, to double the number of people who could stay at the site overnight.

Planning permission had been approved for a 64-bed accommodation block in the spring, with the hope that work would be completed this winter.

The centre used to be completely run by the Council but responsibility is now shared The Nell Bank Trust, which was given £400,000 by the local authority to improve capacity last year.

This was the budget the trust had in mind when the construction project went to tender this summer, but the lowest estimate given for the work was £1.142 million.

The Nell Bank Trust will now have to consider scaling back its plans and the earliest work will be finished is summer 2015.

The manager of Nell Bank, Bruce Fowler, is hopeful the works will still be done and not interfere with the centre's running.

He said: "The plans for the building will have to be modified, we want to keep the same number of additional beds, but we'll have to alter the plans. We are capable of doing that.

"There is a massive demand for what we offer at Nell Bank. We had 23,500 local visits recently and thousands of children come to stay with their parents on weekends. It is a very busy centre.

"We're keen to expand but we'll have to be realistic about the finances available to us."

When proposing the expansion, the trust said limited space meant visitors could only visit for day trips. It argued that improved dormitory facilities would ensure the centre's future by allowing more overnight stays.

The Council has also handed over responsibility of the running of two other outdoor education centres, Buckden House near Skipton and Ingleborough Hall near Lancashire, to trusts.

It pledged £600,000 to improve those two centres and on Tuesday the Council's Children's Services Scrutiny Committee will receive an update on all three centres.

An officer's report into the Nell Bank centre says: "Stakeholders will be required to undertake a redesign and secure external funding to establish whether the revised scheme is viable.

"A revised feasibility study is currently being undertaken and realistically the earliest any scheme would be completed is summer 2015."