Carlisle Turkish Baths campaigners don bathrobes and shower caps

Campaigners trying to save historical public baths attended a council meeting in bathrobes and shower caps.

Carlisle's Victorian Turkish Baths faces being left with no-one to run it when the adjacent swimming pool moves to a new building.

Supporters want the listed baths transferred to community ownership.

Carlisle City Council has agreed to consider this and to allow interior refurbishments and pay utility costs in the meantime after the pool closes.

The baths are Grade I listed and protected but the adjacent 1970s pool building is to be demolished to make way for the expansion of the city's train station.

The new £27m Sands Centre, housing new swimming facilities, is due to open in late autumn.

The council said there were no plans to demolish the baths, which are located on James Street, but they would need to close while the pool site was cleared.

The authority would try to keep the closure to a minimum and work with the Friends of Carlisle's Victorian and Turkish Baths group on a community asset transfer, it said.

Julie Minns, who leads the campaign group, said the bath's long-term future would be decided by the new Cumberland Council, which is one of two unitary authorities due to replace county and district councils in Cumbria.

"We aim to inform their decision with our viability study on developing James Street baths as a centre for health and wellbeing," she said.

The city council's leisure operator, GLL, is working with the group to refurbish the baths' interior, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The authority has also agreed to consider allowing the baths to continue to operate if there are delays to the station development.

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