A FRESH bid to win National Lottery backing for a planned £1m dales swimming pool will be submitted next month.

The Upper Wensleydale Sports and Recreation Association is seeking a £450,000 contribution towards creating a 20-metre pool behind the Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes.

However, even if the Lottery application proves successful, it will still leave a shortfall of £550,000.

The revised bid is to be submitted by December 2 and the outcome should be known within 16 weeks.

John Blackie, leader of Richmondshire District Council, which is co-ordinating the swimming pool scheme, said it would have six months to show it can find the remainder of the cash.

It hopes to be able to secure European funding as well as money from the regional development agency Yorkshire Forward, from county and district councils and from a number of organisations.

Councillor Blackie said that he believed that nearly a fifth of the sum could be raised by people in the market town.

He said: "A community swimming pool would draw in families and youngsters to the dales and I am totally confident that the community will want to raise the funds for this kind of development.

"They are fiercely self-sufficient and willing to rise to any challenge."

A previous £370,000 application for National Lottery funding was delayed while the council awaited the outcome of a similar bid in Pateley Bridge.

"We held back with the application because we didn't want to be first in the race.

"We were anxious to see how the Pateley Bride application did and learn from them.

"They were partially successful so now we are ready to allow our bid to go forward."

Coun Blackie said that the National Lottery no longer supported rural projects to the extent that it did in the past.

"The political winds have changed and the funding tends to favour inner city areas.

"That is why we can only look for 45 per cent funding from them," he said.