NEW multi-million pound plans to revamp Southampton's outdoor Sports Centre can be revealed by the Daily Echo today.

An indoor athletics centre, better spectator facilities, new catering outlets and improved changing rooms are among the proposals to breathe new life into the 1930s-built complex.

But council leisure chiefs have admited the £13m scheme, a plan of which is shown right, is just an expensive wish-list unless organisations such as Sport England and the National Lottery put in cash, too.

The plans are the results of research by a cross-party group of councillors and officers. They followed detailed discussions with centre users and other groups.

They are aiming at maintaining the Sports Centre's role as an important regional venue for athletics and other sports.

Some of the area's elite athletes train at the complex and it has hosted major events including the BAA Millennium Youth Games in 2000 and the Asian Games.

City bosses plan to lease two plots of disused land next to the Sports Centre, behind Red Lodge School. The land could not be used for new homes but could accommodate a privately-funded leisure development.

Cabinet member for leisure Councillor Derek Burke said: "If these plans don't go ahead and the Sports Centre is not improved then we could lose it."

Bob Whitehead of the Southampton Sports Centre Protection Group welcomed the plans.

He said: "I am very pleased with the plans I've seen - especially as the council is not looking to build more housing on the Sports Centre site."

Peter Wakeford, Liberal Democrat spokesman for leisure, said: "We all want to see the Sports Centre improved but the crucial question is where is the money coming from?"

Conservative group leader Alec Samuels said: "I'm worried the public are being promised paradise without sufficient funds to produce it." The plans will be shown at a series of drop-in sessions across the city, starting tonight at The Sporting View, Southampton Sports Centre.