Gravesham council has hit back at claims consultation on a new leisure centre has been rushed through.

Formal plans to demolish Cascades leisure centre and build a new £34 million centre were submitted on December 1 last year, and the official deadline for comments on the project is Monday January 30.

Those behind the scheme say its design has been informed by extensive consultation, but critics say the public has not been given long enough to comment on the new scheme.

Riverview resident and former Maidstone councillor James Willis said he had been a fan of much of Gravesham council's work and the plan could be another opportunity to improve the area.

But he said consultation in November, in advance of the planning application, had been rushed, and that submitting the formal plan just before Christmas meant it had gone unnoticed by many.

"This must be mistake," he said. "That's what corporate businesses not councils do."

"There should be maximum involvement with residents but it's been sadly minimal so far."

Mr Willis said experience at Maidstone council had shown that involving more people usually meant getting better value for money, and suggested further discussion should have taken place in a public forum.

"It will only lead to better plan," he added. "People might feel they've had this imposed on them rather than chosen it. I think it would be good to rebuild the sports centre but if it's a rush you alienate people.

"It helps with public money if people see the benefit, and they feel like they have taken ownership of the project."

But Gravesham council hit back at the comments.

Cllr Shane Mochrie-Cox, the council's cabinet member for community and leisure, said he "could not disagree more" with the idea there had been minimal engagement.

He added: “From the moment we declared our intention to replace Cascades in our budget announcement in February 2020, we engaged with the local community several times, have been speaking to existing leisure centre users, groups representing a variety of sports and local clubs, and governing bodies such as Sport England to ensure our starting point for the new centre was based on a sound understanding of what current and potential users would want to see included and how this could be future proofed.

“I personally met with numerous interested parties and have received written and other communications from those parties and members of the public and then sat down with council officers and our design consultants many times to ensure those views were fed into the design concept.

“Additionally, members from across the council’s political spectrum, representing hundreds of their own constituents, fed their views into the process.

Cllr Mochrie-Cox said formal consultation was widely publicised and attracted almost 700 responses, numbers he believed compared favourably with previous projects, and that further comments had been received via social media.

Those views had been taken into consideration in finalising the planning application, and that the process had led to changes to the proposals.

For example, the initial design had been based on the aim to make the centre a "regional competitive sports and leisure centre", but did not include elements such as water flumes – but public feedback had informed a different approach.

"The very clear public response was this was an unpopular decision and people wished to see the fun element included," he added. "As a direct result of that feedback, flumes and a children’s splash area now form part of our application, along with other more family orientated facilities that it became clear were desirable, alongside the ability to host regional competitive events.

“The submission of the planning application for the new Cascades was again widely publicised, including a link to our website making it easy for interested parties to view and comment on the application. There is, of course, a statutory period for consultation on the planning application and as a listening council we will listen to these comments.

“Because it is a council application, it will be considered in a public meeting by our Planning Committee early this year after the planning consultation period has taken place.

“We pride ourselves on being a listening council and never more so than when it has come to our plans for a new Cascades where we have listened, and listened often. Leisure centres are an important community facility and we want more than anything for the new Cascades to be everything local people want it to be as far as our budget allows."

Cllr Mochrie-Cox thanked all those who had responded to consultation and added: "the evidence is there that we have engaged and we have listened. To say contrary is to dismiss all those that have given their valuable time to feedback and who are still doing so as part of the ongoing process."