Bromyard residents will be able to access several facilities under one roof when the town's redeveloped leisure centre opens next year.

The Cruxwell Street building, formerly known as Bromyard Leisure Centre, will re-open as the Bromyard Centre on January 5.

Herefordshire Council has spent £800,000 on updating the building, to include a new library with free broadband internet access, a tourist information centre and the Info in Herefordshire one-stop-shop for council services.

Leisure facilities, Learn Direct courses and the youth service will also be housed in the centre, which will be run by leisure trust Halo in partnership with the council.

Bromyard councillors Bernard Hunt and Peter Dauncey were among the Herefordshire Council-

lors who made a site visit to the new building on Friday. "I'm very happy, it will be a great facility for the town," said Coun Hunt.

The existing Bromyard Library, in Church Street, will be open for the final time on Tuesday (December 9) but customers can borrow as many items as they like and return them to the new library with all fines and charges waived for its first week of opening.

Work to the caf area will start in January and is due to be completed by mid February.

Coun Hunt said his only reservation about the design of the new caf was the removal of the licensed bar and meal facilities, which were being replaced by vending machines, although he said there would still be bar and meal facilities for the function room.

Coun Dauncey agreed and said a complete section of Bromyard people had been ignored when the centre was planned.

"Lots of people have come up to me in the town, many of them elderly, and have said they are concerned that the facility being removed isn't going to be replaced," he said.

Coun Dauncey said Roy Stockton, Herefordshire Council spokesman for community and social development, has told Halo it must reconsider the provision of the bar and caf in six months time.