Otley's new Mayor is urging residents to back the town's £1.6 million Lottery bid for improved sports facilities - even though the scheme has gone back to the drawing board.

It is now more than a year since Leeds City Council agreed to put Otley forward as a candidate for lottery funding to help pay for improved facilities at Prince Henry's Grammar School.

The council paid Strategic Leisure more than £27,000 to come up with the right sort of bid and expected it to be submitted to the lottery board around the end of last year.

But the criteria have changed several times and now city council officers are reworking the bid to make the scheme fit into a Leeds-wide sports strategy.

The new Town Mayor, Councillor John Eveleigh, said it was essential that the whole town backed the scheme and presented a united front to the lottery distributors.

"It is clear that the Prince Henry's bid is the only show in town and the lottery people need to know that everyone in the town is committed to it," said Coun Eveleigh.

"The criteria have changed on several occasions, sometimes justifiably, but it seems the goalposts just keep moving. Officers are working on it fitting into an overall sports strategy for Leeds.

"As far as I know, no other council has an overall sports strategy, so every council is in the same boat," said Coun Eveleigh.

But he added that because the council had already spent £27,000 on putting the bid together, it remained committed to getting better sports facilities in Otley.

"We are as frustrated as everyone else but there is no doubt the city council is fully behind it. Outline planning permission has been pushed through and now we are just waiting for the nod from the council so that the bid can be put in," said Coun Eveleigh.

On Monday, at the first meeting of Otley Town Council, John Morgan, chairman of Otley Local Advisory Sports Council, asked what had happened to the bid.

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