A PLAN to open a gym at Upton's Hill Centre next year has been put on hold until 2006.

The proposal for a £40,000 gym with changing facilities and showers was presented to Malvern Hills District Council, which owns the Tunnel Hill centre, a few weeks ago.

But leisure service manager Amanda Smith said the council did not feel the plan, drawn up by an unnamed contractor, contained enough information on how the gym would be funded, how it would operate or its benefit to the community.

"They came and presented it to me but the information was insufficient and not a basis to guarantee a fitness extension," she said. "If any decision was made, it would be off the back of a public consultation."

The Hill Centre, a former school, was rebuilt and then re-opened in 2002 by MHDC and has been leased to a management committee since then.

The lease expires at the end of 2006 and MHDC has said if the committee still wants to go ahead with the gym, it will consider the updated plan and renew the lease then.

Management committee chairman Sheina Stockton said she felt MHDC was attempting to stall the project until the committee's lease expired, when it could turn the gym into a commercial venture.

She said: "My anxiety is that MHDC is driving us down the route where something like The Splash would take over and run it as a business and that's nothing to do with what we're about. We want something that's responsive to local needs and can provide for local groups at a low cost."

The committee had hoped that the project could be funded by MHDC but this has fallen through and it is now looking at a partnership with a private company.

Mrs Stockton said the committee would be happy to hold a public meeting about the gym but that she did not feel a large national company would have pursued the project if it did not feel there was a need for it in the town.