Savings from the construction of new multi-million pound leisure centre will be put towards “critical infrastructure” improvements in two others.

The £1.5million underspend from the building of the new Cozenton Park Sports Centre, which opened in July, will be used for improvements at the Strood Sports Centre and Medway Park.

Councillors at Medway Council praised officers for bringing the project, which was to demolish the former Splashes Leisure Centre and construct a new facility on the site in Rainham, to fruition on time and under budget at a cabinet meeting held on Tuesday (October 1).

They supported a recommendation to reinvest the £1.5m savings into other sports centre improvements in an effort to upgrade facilities and attract more customers.

The funding will be split equally between the two centres and could be used to update the pool areas, changing rooms, football pitches or fitness studios - all of which the council says need modernising.

The Strood Sports Centre and Medway Park in Gillingham have been chosen for the funding as the council claims the pool areas are around 50 years old and the sports hall floor in Strood Sports Centre is 25 years old and could become unsafe if not replaced.

Cllr Harinder Mahil (Lab), portfolio holder for economic and social regeneration and inward investment, said the funding would not be used idly, and instead would be for long-term sustainability of Medway’s sports centres.

He said: “I don’t want anyone to think this is money spent idly doing up sports centres with a lick of paint.

“Using this we can fit out, and bring back to life, other sports centres.

“This is not just about this year or next year, this is about the next decade or two decades.

“We got here in the first place because one of our sports centres was left in a ruinous state and it’s meant we’ve now had to spend more money to get it back up to the standard that we need it to be.

“This is an example of what a council can do when it’s run properly.”

He added the investment would also help with the council’s ambition to get the authority’s sports centres self-sufficient and no longer requiring subsidies by 2027.

Councillors acknowledged they could put the money to other uses, but they said reinvestment to improve the sports services was a prudent choice.

Deputy leader Teresa Murray (Lab) said: “We could’ve done all sorts of things with the underspend, but this is the right thing to do.

“We’ve got communities across Medway who use the other leisure centres and they all deserve to have decent facilities.

“And we’ve got to put in place measures to make sure we don’t get in the position with Splashes again where things are falling down around our ears because we haven’t put in that investment before it’s too late.”

In June 2021, it was announced that the former Splashes, which originally opened in 1990, was to be demolished to stop it from becoming an "eyesore" and to make way for a new facility.

Medway councillors were divided over plans to increase the budget of Splashes to nearly £25m.

The initial scheme - just to refurbish the centre - was first put forward at £5m.

Earlier this week the council’s cabinet agreed to recommend that the £1.5million underspend be used for refurbishments of the two sports centres.

All councillors will discuss and vote on the idea at the next full council meeting on October 17.