REDDITCH Council has decided to put together a ‘full business case’ to create a company to help protect the town's best assets.

Earlier this week the Labour-run council approved a Local Authority Trading Company (or LATC) in principal to operate council leisure facilities.

The proposed company will be a separate company solely owned by the borough council to run the "jewels in Redditch’s crown" - The Palace Theatre, the Abbey Stadium, Pitcheroak Golf Course, Forge Mill Needle Museum and Bordesley Abbey.

It will also look after community centres and and allotments.

The hope is that it will deliver significant savings and protect the pensions and terms and conditions of existing staff.

However, the plan has been lambasted and called "unambitious" by the opposition Tory group.

Conservative councillor Juliet Brunner said Labour lacked the commitment to go to an external trust which would have made bigger savings compared to their choice of minimal savings.

She said: "What the Labour group are proposing is not best value for our tax payers, it won’t deliver any substantial savings and worst of all they’re letting down our staff. They are denying them opportunities for growth and professional development."

Labour councillor John Fisher defended the plan saying "this is the right option" while Labour's Greg Chance called it "innovative" and "brave".

The move comes after councillors decided in February to explore alternative models for leisure provision, in a bid to make savings of more than £400,000 a year from next year under continued reductions in public spending.

A final decision on the plans will be made next year.