Tenby Leisure Centre is to get a major upgrade.

Work starts shortly on a £1.4m refurbishment of the south Pembrokeshire leisure facility.

The work will include a brand new fitness facility and café, as well as refurbishment of the foyer and other dry-side facilities.

The project is the culmination of a 10-year £20 million leisure facilities strategy, which has seen the building of new leisure centres and upgrading of facilities across the county.

"One way to encourage people to be active is to provide them with top class facilities," said Clr. Elwyn Morse, the county council's cabinet member for sport and leisure.

"We hope that the upgrade at Tenby will inspire people to take up more sport and physical activity," he said.

Chris Payne, Pembrokeshire County Council leisure services manager, said that since 2002 the county council had built two new leisure centres at Fishguard and Haverfordwest and upgraded those at Milford Haven and Pembroke.

"In addition, we have built a new sports hall for St. David's and upgraded ATP (astro turf pitches) and tracks across the county.

"Tenby is the culmination of this programme," he said.

Work starts on realigning the driveway entrance to Tenby Leisure Centre shortly and once that is completed work will start on upgrading the centre itself.

It is expected that the project will take around a year to complete.

The centre will remain open to the public throughout, although there will be a temporary new entrance.

The project has been designed by Pembrokeshire County Council's in-house team of architects with centre building work carried out by local contractors, WJG Evans.