Bradford Council sports bosses have said sorry after children were turned away from swimming lessons last weekend.

Youngsters and their families had arrived at the start of the half-term holiday expecting sessions to be running as normal – when in fact they had been cancelled because of the Spring Bank break.

It turned out Saturday’s date had been missed off a list sent out in letters from the Council to parents and carers.

One of the parents affected was Councillor Rebecca Poulsen, the Conservative group spokesman on sport, leisure and environment, who described it as “absolute chaos” at Keighley Pool.

Coun Poulson (Worth Valley) said: “The staff did their best but this basic error by the Council is sloppy and just shouldn’t happen. Parents across the district have wasted time and money getting to their local pool.”

She said she hoped the Council would take responsibility and refund hard-pressed parents the money that the department had cost them.

It had been claimed by the Conservative group that “hundreds of children” had been turned away from their lessons at pools across the district.

But Phil Barker, Bradford Council’s assistant director for sport and leisure services, said the issue concerned only the lessons at Keighley pool.

He said: “An error resulted in the holiday dates being omitted from some of the letters sent to the parents and carers of children taking part in swimming lessons.

“Only children who had lessons on Saturday morning at Keighley were affected. As soon as we found out about the error we contacted families who had later lessons to tell them not to turn up.”

He added: “The numbers affected are estimated to be about 40. We apologise to anyone who was inconvenienced and we are taking steps to prevent the issue from arising again.”