MEMBERS of the gym at Hexham's Wentworth Leisure Centre were stunned to find equipment being moved the day before a scheduled nine-day closure.

Northumberland county councillor for Hexham East, Coun. Cath Homer, told Monday's meeting of Hexham Town Council she'd received a flurry of calls from angry gym users whose work outs had been interrupted.

One member wrote on the leisure centre's Facebook page: "Livid that I turn up today to do my final workout before gym shuts at 10pm tonight to discover machines are being moved as we use them!

"Never mind how unprofessional this is and inconvenient, but what a massive health and safety issue! No respect."

Centre users had been informed that the closure would run from December 3 to December 12 to allow for work to improve the lighting levels in the gym.

Other maintenance work taking place in the centre at the same time which won't affect customers includes flood defence improvements to the building, replacing firedoors in the sports hall and improving lighting in the pool hall.

Extra fitness classes have been laid on for the duration of the gym closure.

And staff at Wentworth say they were only moving equipment to ensure ease of access for contractors starting work at 7.30am on Saturday morning.

Centre manager, Geoff Cant, explained in a statement: "On Friday we looked at moving some equipment around in the gym whilst we had the manpower. The staff waited until the equipment was not being used before doing so.

"One customer complained to the staff about them doing this when the gym was open and they immediately stopped moving the equipment."