The popular pitch and putt course at Coate Water park will definitely open this spring for the summer season, borough councillors were told.

But there remains some doubt about whether the splash park will.

Members of Swindon Borough Council’s scrutiny committee gave members of the authority’s Conservative cabinet a grilling over its apparent change of heart towards the splash park and golf course.

They had both been earmarked for closure or restricted opening in an early version of next year’s council budget in order to make a saving of £30,000 for the cash-strapped council.

But those measures were removed from the final budget approved last week by cabinet and due to be voted on by the full council next week.

Labour councillor Jane Milner-Barry asked: “Will both the pitch and putt and splash park definitely stay open?”

In the absence of Coun Donachie, who is the cabinet member leading on the park as a whole, council leader David Renard said: “We want to do a full review of Coate Water to make it a sustainable park for the people of Swindon for many years to come.

“The issue with the splash park is that there needs to be a technical evaluation done on it to see if it can be opened.

"When that evaluation comes back then we’ll have to look at it, but if it can then it is our proposal to open it.”

Conservative councillor Fionuala Foley said: “The pitch and putt course is due to open in April.”

In response to the committee chairman, Coun Bob Wright’s question about whether maintenance work had been done for this year on the splash park, or had been put off because the park may have been closed, Coun Foley said: “Technical specialists are having to look. That’s not something we can do ourselves.

“We are awaiting the report on whether it’s possible technically to get the park up and running in the next financial year.”

Labour’s Coun Chris Watts said he’d heard that the company that mothballed the park in September and would be opening it up in May had had its contract with the council cancelled in December, and asked for confirmation as to whether that was the case.

The council says that it intends to spend £1m extra over the next few years on Coate Water, with the money from contributions from developers and builders at Badbury Park nearby being used to revamp the entire park

As he left the meeting the cabinet member for finance Coun Russell Holland said: “Coate Water is safe.”