THE cost of bailing out leisure centres in north Wiltshire is set to leave the district council with a £1.5m cash crisis.

The projected seven-figure budget overspend for 2006-07 is partly due to £500,000 being spent on supporting North Wiltshire Leisure Ltd (NWLL) and a further £200,000 to aid NWLL's cashflow problems.

NWLL runs six centres including the Olympiad in Chippenham, Springfield Leisure Centre in Corsham and White Horse Leisure Centre in Calne.

Rising vehicle fuel costs and the impact of salary increases were cited as contributing to the overspend.

District council leader Carol O'Gorman played down the crisis and said it was not unusual to have a projected overspend at this time of year and anticipated some of it could be clawed back in the next few months.

She said the NWLL hand-outs would probably have to come from reserves, but apart from the NWLL money the projected overspend was about the same as last year, and in that instance the council managed to balance its books.

"Any other council you'll find would be about the same, but I'm not happy with that, I want things to be tight," she said.

Areas for possible savings include current vacant posts, unspent service budgets and projects that haven't been started, so these will be assessed to determine the impact cuts would have on services and customers.

Conservative leader on the council Dick Tonge said he was very worried.

"They are spending money like water and it will be very difficult to claw it back," he said.

"At every budget we have warned that this would happen and at every budget we have been ignored. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.

"It's really appalling that taxpayers money is being frittered away like this."

Fellow Conservative councillor Nina Phillips agreed.

She said: "The problem really does need to be sorted as we've been bailing them (NWLL) out for the last year or so.

"It's difficult because leisure is very important, but something does need to be done urgently."

The district council is waiting for its Leisure Provision Working Group to come forward with recommendations on the future of the six leisure centres and future provision.

Cllr O'Gorman said: "If we do not take positive action now and implement good sound financial management our revenue expenditure will exceed income both this year and in future years."