WORK to replace an air heating unit at a Christchurch leisure centre will cost the council £24,000 more than initially budgeted.

The contract for the scheme at 2 Riversmeet Leisure Centre has been given to SSE Ltd, with the firm providing the only compliant bid from 33 companies that registered an interest.

Council officers had allocated £116,000 for the work, however under delegated powers this has been increased to £140,000.

The additional funds to address the shortfall were supplied from unallocated revenue reserves.

A report to Wednesday's meeting of Christchurch Borough Council's resources committee explaining the situation says: "The decision to award the contract to SSE Ltd is in order for the project to go ahead immediately.

"An alternative decision would be to retender the project. This would delay the project considerably." The issue with the system first came to light in December last year, when the air heating equipment for the pool area failed.

An initial temporary fix to the situation using a diesel system caused further problems when it pumped exhaust fumes into the pool area.

The centre has been using temporary heaters since then.