Secretary Libby Magann said she was shocked and disappointed to read in the Leader that the council planned to break the "completely unaffordable" swim centre project into "bite-sized chunks".

"I'm gobsmacked to be honest, we had a good relationship with the council and they were telling us how it was going - I hadn't heard anything from them except for in the news that's what's going to happen," she said.

"I'm really shocked and disappointed, because we are working towards a year-round facility, we have nowhere to train in winter and we were looking forward to having this facility and growing our sport."

Mayor Col Murray told the Leader this week that the $67 million aquatic centre was essentially dead in the water unless it was broken into smaller projects or the council fronted up a substantial amount of cash.

He said it hadn't drawn the interest of the state or federal government.

Neither has made a funding commitment to the project.

But, Tamworth MP Kevin Anderson said he strongly supported plans for an aquatic centre in Tamworth.

"It's not good enough we don't have a facility like that in our city, the largest city in the New England North West," he said.

"Kids are still getting up at four and five o'clock in the morning to go and train.

"People move for facilities, let's have them move to us rather than they move away - good families are moving away because they don't have the facilities."

The project was supposed to have two 50-metre swimming pools, stands for 500 people and a 15-metre water slide with disabled access. A cafe, creche, gymnasium and off-street parking was also in the plan.

Read also:

Ms Magann said there's no point building the centre in chunks if people can't be brought in for state and national events.

"I'm worried it means an indoor 25-metre pool ... I really hope all the pool user groups have some input into what the council wants to do when they were committed to it and now they are back-peddling," she said.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: