A COUNCIL says it "beggars belief" that repairs to a flagship leisure centre will take about two-and-a-half years to fully complete..

Dumfries and Galloway Council said it is seeking compensation from the contractors Keir, who built the DG One, to recover soaring costs associated with the closure and the repair works.

Repair costs at he Dumfries complex are now estimated to be between £6 million and £10m when it had previously believed to be around £5m.

The problems which led to the closure of DG One last year will not begin until the autumn of this year, and will take a further 18 months to finish.

Alex Haswell, director of community and customer services, said since the closure on October 6, further investigations showed that the nature and extent of the defects within the building were "even worse than originally thought".

He said: "Dumfries and Galloway Council very much regret having to close DG One and the disruption caused to our valued customers and to the people of Dumfries and Galloway.

"We had to close the building to allow further extensive, intrusive investigations into the condition of the building in order to discover all the defects. The serious nature and extent of the defects discovered beggars belief."

He said the council had taken a lot of criticism but it had moved "as quickly as possible" due to the denial of responsibility by contractors Kier Construction.

He said that "a number" of specific standards "were clearly not achieved".

The council said it was committed to providing "suitable, alternative provision" by continuing to provide the facilities at Loreburn Hall in Dumfries and the temporary pool at Dumfries Ice Bowl.

A spokesman for Kier Construction said: "The investigation at DG One Leisure Centre is still ongoing and the findings from technical experts are yet to be concluded.

"It would therefore be inappropriate for us to comment further at this time."