A LAST-DITCH attempt to get £1.6 million lottery funding for Otley's dire sports facilities has failed.

Despite spending £27,000 on the professionally prepared bid, Leeds City Council has lost its battle to improve the public facilities at Prince Henry's Grammar School.

Earlier this year supporters were devastated when lottery distributor Sport England turned down the bid. Hundreds of people put their names to a petition and an appeal was hastily submitted.

But the appeal failed even to get the support of an independent assessor and was not even allowed back to the lottery board for a fresh look.

John Morgan, former chairman of Otley Sports Council, said he was very disappointed.

"Obviously I am bitterly disappointed having pulled for this for something like 15 years. I think the reason for its failure is because of Leeds City Council's poor track record and lack of investment.

"It's no surprise that the lottery was not prepared to put money into something that should've been maintained by the local authority. There was no guarantee that Leeds would do any better in the future.

"The whole crux of the bid was to get the lottery to do something that Leeds should have been doing for years, but now they have been rumbled."

Mr Morgan added the sad thing was that Otley was the biggest loser.

"It is tragic that the ratepayers have had to fork out this money for the consultants when the money could have been spent on the pool in the first place."

Councillor Phil Coyne, chairman of Otley and Wharfedale Community Involvement Team (CIT), last week predicted that the appeal was about to fail.

He told a CIT meeting that he had received an 'extraordinarily negative' reply from Sport England to his letter in support of the appeal.

And he suggested that the CIT make sports facilities one of its main priorities.

Harold Best, Labour MP for Leeds North-West, said every effort had to be made to seek other avenues of funding. He added he was also seeking Ministerial support for the project.

"I am very disappointed but not in despair about the outcome. We must pursue other avenues now and keep the campaign rolling. That is what I and others will be doing."

Councillor Tom Murray, executive board member with responsibility for sport, said: "We have received a letter from the Sports Lottery Board confirming that our appeal over the Prince Henry's lottery bid was unsuccessful.

"Obviously we are disappointed, since we feel the proposal was very strong. However, we are reviewing all of our sports provision in Leeds and hope that the Otley area will in due course gain the investment in improved sporting facilities that are needed.

"We are currently in dialogue with the school about what short-term maintenance problems need to be addressed."Lesley-steel

John Steel, head teacher Prince Henry's Grammar School, said it was a huge disappointment and added that the school would now be appealing for help..

"It is extremely disappointing, particularly when we can see such large sums of money going on flagship projects like the Millennium Dome.

"We will be negotiatig with Leeds City Council."