OPPOSITION councillors have taken issue with the Conservative administration’s plea to Historic England not to list the Oasis.

And the town's former mayor thinks there may be a compelling case to give the 44-year-old leisure centre extra protection.

Swindon Borough Council’s cabinet member for heritage and culture Dale Heenan wrote to Historic England asking it not to list the Oasis this week, echoing similar calls from leader David Renard.

Coun Heenan said the building – closed indefinitely after operator GLL pulled the plug in November – did not deserve it architecturally or historically, and any listing would delay and possibly prevent the multi-million pound refurbishment required to get it open again.

But Labour’s spokesman for the town centre and economic development Junab Ali disagrees.

He said: “Swindon deserves better than this, which is why the Labour group identified the funds necessary to refurbish the building in its amendment to the budget last week.

“We convinced the Lib Dem and Independent Tory councillors to support it, only to be voted down by the administration, despite their claims to be supporting the Oasis. All that has been done in 10 years is a change to the changing rooms.

“While we recognise that listing the Oasis will make renovations somewhat harder, it is possible to refurbish listed buildings, and we note that there have been two separate applications for listing.

“The application by the Twentieth Century Society (campaign group) makes interesting reading and builds a compelling case for the Oasis to be listed.”

Labour disagreed with Coun Heenan's assertion that the 1970s Oasis building wasn’t historically or architecturally important enough.

Coun Ali said: “Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, recently said: 'Postmodern architecture brought fun and colour to our streets. These are scarce survivals of a really influential period of British architecture and these buildings deserve the protection that listing gives them'.

“The Labour groups want Historic England to properly consider the applications and we trust them to make the best decision for the Oasis.

“In the meantime, we will continue to press for the Oasis to be refurbished and reopened as soon as possible, and bring joy to a new generation of Swindon families."

A spokesman for the Save Oasis Swindon campaign group said they wanted to see the listing process competed as quickly as possible.

They said the campaign could not comment on whether it wanted to see the building added to the list.