A HUDDERSFIELD sports club has had the plug pulled on its plans for new changing rooms after a five-year wait for cash.
Huddersfield YMCA's £600,000 scheme was scuppered after a cash crisis forced Sport England to withdraw grants to 40 groups.
Today, a YMCA director launched a scathing attack after hearing the news.
David Ruddiman, development co-ordinator for the project at the Laund Hill complex at Salendine Nook, said: "I am absolutely livid. We have spent thousands of hours putting the bid together.
"It is criminal."
Mr Ruddiman, who has been preparing the bid since 1998, said the YMCA had been "led down the garden path".
He added: "We've been made to jump through hoop after hoop by Sport England - and now they've changed the goalposts once again.
"We've spent five years filling in forms, and at every stage have been assured our bid was progressing."
Mr Ruddiman said it was obvious the cash which had been withdrawn would now go towards Britain's bid to host the 2012 Olympics in London.
"Sport in Huddersfield is suffering at the expense of sport in London," he added.
He said the plans for the changing rooms were the final piece in the jigsaw to complete the facilities at Laund Hill, which were used by hundreds of young people and adults.
The plans included 10 new changing rooms, a fitness room, physiotherapy and first aid rooms and facilities for the disabled.
Mr Ruddiman added that current facilities were 45 years old and many teams came already changed, to avoid using the Laund Hill facilities.
The Salendine Nook club is among 40 unlucky schemes who have bid for nearly £40m funding from Sport England.
Staffing at Sport England has been cut from 570 to 240 since December because of a cash crisis following falling interest in the national lottery.
Sport England chief executive Roger Draper said: "We had given a commitment to fund all these projects.
"We do not underestimate the disappointment some applicants will feel."
