COLCHESTER Council is “mismanaging” its sporting facilities and losing up to £1 million a year in costs, a councillor has claimed.

Council bosses were celebrating a bumper new year at its Leisure World facility, which exceeded membership targets by nearly 50 per cent in January.

Latest figures show 929 memberships were sold that month alone, against a target of 629.

This resulted in the highest monthly sales in its history and followed a £1.5 million refurbishment of the leisure centre’s gym.

But councillor Lewis Barber (Con) said the council is struggling to balance the books.

He points to figures laid out in Colchester Council’s Sport and Leisure budget, which predict a £1 million deficit for 2018/19.

The council looks set to have an income of about £5 million from its facilities, mainly Leisure World, with a “direct” expenditure of around £4.4 million.

Although this leaves a net profit of £650,000, “non-direct” costs including IT, insurance, building maintenance and accountancy total more than £1.6 million.

Mr Barber said: “This leaves an overall deficit of £1 million.

“The council is also throwing even more money than this, around £1.5 million, in the hope it will turn things around.

“This strategy has failed in the past and we want to see a new one.

“Leisure World is a fabulous facility, I want to see it thrive.

“But at the moment every penny it is losing from mismanagement could have been put into frontline services or improving the borough’s health and environment in other ways.

“We need accessible, affordable and sustainable facilities. “The council isn’t delivering this, we want to.”

But Paul Smith, leader of Colchester Council, said: “Putting it bluntly councillor Barber doesn’t understand his figures.

“We are actually doing better than budget now. A few years ago we were just breaking even, now we have a surplus.

“He then goes on to take off all the contributions to the council, overheads and costs that we would still have to pay if we shut Leisure World.

“If it wasn’t for Leisure World we would have to find the cash elsewhere.

“Leisure World is making contributions of hundreds of thousands of pounds to the council’s overheads.”