CAMPAIGNERS have failed to keep a tiny dales swimming baths open for community use.

An eleventh-hour meeting on Monday night failed to persuade Wear Valley District Council to pull out of a sharing scheme yesterday at Wolsingham School Pool, which is owned by Durham County Council. Instead, the district says it would support any community group set up to reopen the pool outside school hours.

The district is saving £20,000 a year by withdrawing funding from the pool, which officers say will soon need an overhaul costing hundreds of thousands of pounds.

They say swimming numbers have dropped from 18,000 to 11,000 in two years, making it unsustainable financially.

GP Maggie Deytrikh, who chairs an action group fighting to preserve public use, argues that swimming is important on health grounds. Other campaigners point out that the decision leaves Weardale without a council sports facility and accuse Wear Valley of not giving them value for money from their council tax.

Dr Deytrikh met both council's chief executives, Iain Phillips from the district, and Kingsley Smith from the county, for three hours on Monday night.

A Wear Valley spokesman said: "Wolsingham pool is now the district's most expensive public swimming facility.

"The number of users has virtually halved in the last 24 months, increasing the level of subsidy that Wear Valley residents are paying to every person who uses the pool to a point where it is unsustainable in cost terms."