An 11th hour bid will be made next week to save two-closure threatened Aberdeen swimming pools.
Sport Aberdeen announced earlier this month that it would be shutting Hazlehead and Kincorth pools in August following a review of facilities in the city.
The organisation is faced with a funding gap after Aberdeen City Council slashed its budget by £405,000 earlier this year, and has argued the two pools are not used enough to justify keeping them open.
But hundreds of people have signed a petition calling for the pools to be saved, with Aberdeen’s Rio Olympic hopeful swimmer Robbie Renwick also criticising the decision.
Now the SNP group has revealed it will be tabling an emergency meeting at next Wednesday’s finance committee meeting, urging the council to continue funding the pool at Kincorth until the new south of the city academy opens next year.
An energy rebate would be given to Hazlehead which could save it.
Last night SNP group leader Stephen Flynn said that an energy rebate could potentially save Hazlehead while if the south of the city academy had been built on time the current situation wouldn’t have arisen.
He said: “I think everyone recognises that the pools are tremendous community assets and there is a lot of passion around them.
“It’s not just the schools that this involves but the whole community.”
But last night Councillor Ross Thomson, former vice-convener of the finance committee, cast doubts over the SNP’s motion and said the pools should be financed through a devolution of business rates.
Mr Thomson, who is also a Tory North East MSP, said the Business Rates Incentivisation Scheme should be pushed further so that each local authority keeps all its business rates.
He said: “This is obviously a decision purely for Sport Aberdeen so I don’t think we should be raiding council funds to save them.
“At the moment Aberdeen is the lowest funded authority and we are still giving £500,000 from the city’s business rates to Holyrood.
“I hope the Aberdeen SNP will support me in urging (Finance Secretary) Derek Mackay to look into this measure which could keep the pools open for years to come.”
Mr Flynn said the idea was “pie in the sky”.
Last night finance vice-convener Alan Donnelly, who sits on the Sport Aberdeen board, said the pools were “not viable” in the current economic climate.
He said: “I find it particularly rich that the SNP are calling for this when it is the SNP government in Edinburgh cut the funding to local authorities causing this.
“The administration doesn’t want to close swimming pools, we are trying to do the best in what we have been left with.”