Sports centre faces funding crisis

Sport England says the centre has not been attracting enough visitors

The future of the national water sports centre at Holme Pierrepoint looks uncertain after its owners, Sport England, announced multi-million pound cuts.

The funding body has announced a freeze on almost £6m worth of backing, due to falling lottery revenues.

Holme Pierrepoint is one of four of the country's sporting institutes to suffer big cash losses.

In June Sport England also stopped funding for the national table tennis centre which is based on the site.

Action plan

Sport England says the cuts are a short term solution to safeguard future plans.

It has announced that due to falling revenue it is making over £31m of cutbacks.

Sport England's chief executive Roger Draper gave assurances the site will not be closing and no job losses are planned.

But he underlined the problem that the water sports centre is just not pulling the crowds.

He said: "There is no point in putting a sticking plaster on a broken leg and propping up facilities which are aging.

"What we want to do is come up with the right solutions and come up with modern facilities for people who want to get involved in sport."

Sport England says an action plan is now in place to map out the site's future.