COUNCIL-RUN sports centres across Worcester are expected be handed to an outside provider to run - months after a similar deal collapsed.

Your Worcester News can reveal how the city council wants to find "a long term partner" to take over leisure centres and a host of play or art-related activities.

The likely winner of a bumper contract is expected to be a trust, which would mean huge savings on VAT and rates.

The money-saving tactic would affect the likes of Perdiswell Leisure Centre, St John's Sports Centre, Nunnery Wood's leisure complex and a raft of summer events and clubs staged for children.

It would also mean the new Worcester swimming pool, which is expected to be created by spending £10.4 million on extending the Perdiswell site, would be ran by an outside organisation.

It follows an attempt to transfer leisure centres to Wychavon Leisure Trust was abandoned in November last year after both sides could not reach a final agreement.

That deal would have saved £160,000 over two years, but the exact savings which could arise from a new handover are yet to be revealed.

A new report for the Conservative cabinet tonight reveals how the council is under pressure to save around £309,000 from its safer and stronger communities budget, which includes sport and leisure.

In October last year the council controversially shut Nunnery Wood Sports Complex on Fridays to cut costs.

The council is hoping the end bidder can run all the leisure centres and take over responsibility for play activities across the city, including staffing.

Your Worcester News understands the council is hoping to offer a 10-year contract with the option to extend it for a further three or five-year period.

At the moment only Sansome Walk pool and Perdiswell are operated by an external body, in the form of 1Life Management Solutions Ltd, although the contract is expiring next year.

The deal is estimated to cost around £100,000 to set up, including £50,000 on legal fees, but big savings would be on offer over the duration of the contract.

Councillor David Wilkinson, cabinet member for safer and stronger communities, said: "This is part of a process which has been in train for some time and we are now looking to carry it forward.

"Clearly, some of this is about saving money but this is also a very important building block in the swimming pool project too."

But Councillor Adrian Gregson, Labour group leader, has called it "outrageous".

"It's culturally myopic, they are looking for a commercial market and I think it's outrageous," he said.

"It's going much further than what we were looking at."