AMBITIOUS plans for a snow centre in Southampton have been axed by the new Labour-run council, the Daily Echo can reveal.

The plan to transform the city into the skiing-mecca of southern England was part of a proposed major leisure complex by the Itchen Bridge bringing a jobs bonanza.

The snow centre on the council’s former Town Depot site would have included a huge indoor ski slope and a possible small ice rink, with shops, restaurants and flats on the waterfront.

The proposed attraction, first revealed two years ago by the Daily Echo, would have been the first of its kind on the south coast and a huge regional crowd-puller with the nearest 100 miles away in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire.

But in an interview with the Daily Echo, new council leader Richard Williams revealed he has killed off the plan and would be looking for an alternative development.

“We were fairly clear to officers earlier on that we didn’t want a snow centre so there’s not going to be a snow dome,” he said.

“What we want to do is develop marine activities on the waterfront.

“It could be anything in that context but it won’t be something that isn’t water related for obvious reasons.

“What we haven’t got much of in the city is access to the waterfront and to not have waterfront-based activities on the waterfront would be a bit silly in our opinion.”

Cllr Williams also ruled out any council involvement in an ice rink, dashing hopes of the city’s skating community who have been campaigning for an ice pad since the last one closed down in 1988.

“There won’t be one of those either. We’ve not committed to an ice rink. If somebody wants to come forward with one then that’s a different kettle of fish, but it’s not something the council is going to get involved with,” he said.

Cllr Williams said a private operator would also be welcome to come forward with plans to build a snow centre on the M27 or the M271, but said he didn’t want the traffic it would have brought clogging up the inner-city.

The snow centre was a flagship scheme of the previous Tory administration, which had last year approved £650,000 for the former 11- acre Town Depot industrial site to be cleared ready for the development.

Tory opposition group leader Royston Smith said he was “really disappointed”.

“It was going to be a regional draw to put Southampton on the map as a leisure destination that would have created lots of jobs and construction work.

"It was going to complement very well the football club and Ocean Village on the other side and allow regeneration to be driven down the waterfront.”