CONTROVERSIAL plans to redevelop a theatre and sports complex will go before councillors next week.

If given the go-ahead, the Barbican Centre, in York, would undergo a major redevelopment.

The plans include a four-star hotel with conferencing facilities, a refurbished auditorium, 240 apartments and a 270-space public car park on the existing Barbican site.

City of York Council is proposing to use the funding raised from the sale of the site to Barbican Venture to refurbish the city's Yearsley and Edmund Wilson swimming pools, which are in need of modernisation.

The council is also seeking to build a new council-owned and run community swimming pool, fitness suite and dance studios on the site of the existing Kent Street coach and public car parks.

The plans have sparked a huge debate in the city, with 82 letters sent to the council and a campaign group, Save Our Barbican, being set up.

York Civic Trust savaged the plans when asked for its views by the council.

The group said: "The entire scheme is huge and overpowering and to be successful it must be more modest in scale, massing and density.

"The design of the buildings is very mediocre and the materials foreign to York."

Councillors will discuss the plans on Thursday.

If planning permission is agreed, work on the scheme could start as early as August, once the centre closes at the end of July.

The swimming pool and treatment rooms are due to close on June 7 to enable decommissioning work to start.