Senior City of York Councillors will be asked to underline the authority's commitment to York's leisure facilities later this month (23 October) by outlining the future direction of swimming and leisure.

The city's leisure chiefs have carried out a review of the city's existing facilities, assessing the need for swimming and fitness facilities at present and the projected requirement in the future.

Analysis of existing swimming facilities suggests that York needs 12 additional 25m lanes of swimming space at present, with this likely to increase to 16, 25m lanes by 2015.

Yearsley Swimming Pool, in the north of the city, is currently undergoing a £900,000 programme of refurbishment, to secure the pool's future until at least 2012. The pool is expected to reopen on 29 October.

Plans are also underway to build a new pool at the Oaklands/York High School site, in the west of the city. The scheme will provide a £5.45m six-lane community pool with trainer pool as well as a hydrotherapy centre. The pool will be available for a wide range of community uses.

Councillors will be asked whether they want to allocate money from the contingency funds available in the pools programme, which has been funded by the sale of the Barbican, to fund additional features such as installing high specification equipment to heat the pool including bio-mass boilers and solar panels which will help achieve the council’s policy of reducing carbon emissions by 25 per cent by 2013.

In a bid to meet the need for additional swimming facilities, particularly in the south and east of the city, the council  previously signed a Statement of Intent with the University of York with regard to the development of a competition standard swimming pool and fitness facilities at Heslington.

Councillors will be asked whether they wish to be partners in the project, which will see the creation of a range of facilities including fitness, dance, aerobics, martial arts, and a café. The joint facilities are likely to cost approximately £10m, of which £2m would come from the council to ensure access for the community to the new facilities.

Members will also be asked to confirm whether they would like the council to work with the university to build a new pool at Hesligton, at the same time as pursuing   a longer term plan to build a city centre pool, to meet the increase demand for swimming in 2015.