Work to upgrade essential plant and machinery at Tides Leisure Centre starts next Monday.

The £600,000 task has been planned so that the Deal centre can stay open while the improvements are carried out.

Work will take place during the day but major tasks will be carried out outside normal opening hours to minimise disruption.

Managers says this means some work will be done in the evenings and are apologising in advance for any possible inconvenience to neighbours.

Cllr Trevor Bartlett, Dover District Council cabinet member for property management said: “Tides Leisure Centre provides a valuable and popular facility for residents and visitors. DDC has invested over £1m in Deal over the last few months, and we are very pleased to invest in new plant and machinery to maintain the facility at Tides.

"We continue to work to explore options for future provision.”

The Park Avenue centre is run by Your Leisure Kent Ltd on behalf of the council.

The council's cabinet in July approved the spending of £600,000 for urgent plant refurbishment to immediately deal with essential maintenance.

The 31-year-old centre has had problems such as deteriorating flume and wave machines, pool floor tiles lifting up and the roof leaking.

The cabinet had also agreed to preserve £100,000 for emergency works and £10,000 on a project to look into long term options.

Overall the work involves refurbishment, demolition and rebuilding of parts of the site to keep the centre open for another 20 to 30 years

An officers’ report in July said that without immediate remedial works, there was an increasing risk of frequent or even permanent pool closures because a number of essential plant items were coming to the end of their use.

Work to improve Tides and keep it going is wanted on top of the district-wide £26 million Dover District Leisure Centre in Whitfield, which opens next year.