A meeting has been called over the decision to make Helston Sports Centre cashless and highlight its "appalling" changing facilities at the same time.

One of Helston's Cornwall councillors, Mike Thomas, said he had asked cabinet member Mike Eathorne-Gibbons to tour the centre with him, in light of recent changes that have also included reducing the centre's opening times.

Mr Thomas said this not only affected people's ability to support the centre, but also cut staff's hours.

He told the last meeting of Helston Town Council: "I have met with Mike and I have invited him to visit Helston Sports Centre.

"I want to stress my pleasure in the excellent work that the sports centre staff do. They often have to be apologising for GLL Better and they're not paid for that, but they do an excellent job.

"I want Mike to review the facilities there, especially the ancient changing areas, which I think are just appalling.

"There should be private areas for people to change, as they do in many sports centres."

He acknowledged that regarding cashless payment he was "not sure where we can go with that," adding: "Although in principle I support cashless, we have to recognise there's diversity in our society and not everyone has access to cashless."

As reported earlier this month, the centre's parent company GLL introduced the new system on September 9, having taken over the contract for all 15 Cornwall Council-owned leisure centres and facilities in the county on April 1, 2017. They are now run under the Better brand.

The company said it was designed to make life easier for customers and improve customer service by reducing queues at reception, as well as eliminate the potential for thefts of cash.

James Curry, head of service for GLL in the south west and Wales, previously told the Packet that customers were encouraged to book and pay online in advance for classes and activities, adding that membership cards could have funds added and there were other pre-loadable cards that could be used.

He described the number of cash transactions in its centre as proportionally "tiny".

The Packet has contacted a representative of GLL for further comment.