Warwick District Council must avoid letting Abbey Fields become the area's version of HS2, a local councillor has said.

Speaking at last week's full council meeting, Cllr Richard Dickson said it was vital that a decision on the town's new swimming pools is made as soon as possible amid rising costs and delays.

With a recent council report saying the project could cost almost three times as much as originally planned, the Liberal Democrat councillor told members that £500,000 had been paid to contractors Kier since May - despite no construction work taking place in that period of time.

"I know it is on a slightly different scale, but the Abbey Fields swimming project it seems to me is possibly at risk of becoming Warwick district's version of HS2 and we need to avoid that if we possibly can," he warned the council.

The district council is expected to make a decision on the Abbey Fields project in November.

If councillors decide to press ahead with the project, new designs will then need to be signed off with work not expected to start again until March.

The new leisure centre would then not be finished until at least summer 2026.

Cllr Richard Dickson has warned that delays in Abbey Fields must not continue to drag on (image supplied)

While the future of the project remains unclear, project manager for the new Abbey Fields leisure centre Padraig Herlihy said he will continue to work behind the scenes.

"We will be proceeding to avoid any additional delay unless or until the decision is taken to stop the project," he told locals at last week's public meeting.

"The decision will be made in November about the future of the project. 

"At the moment we have to continue, because otherwise we could delay the project further."

The same council report also said moving the leisure centre to a new site could cost at least £26.7 million, and would not be complete until 2028 at the earliest.