Council chiefs have scrapped plans to close a leisure centre cafe after more than 200 people backed a campaign to save it.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council proposed to replace the cafe at Dimensions with vending machines to save £93,000 a year as part of its budget for 2026/27.

But council leaders have now agreed to keep the cafe open – with a reduced subsidy – following meetings with leisure centre users.

A total of 236 people signed a petition to save the cafe, which claimed that that it was 'greatly depended on' by many parents and children.

Under a revised proposal, the subsidy for the cafe will reduced to £50,000, and 'further options' to mitigate the remaining funding gap will be developed over the coming months.

Cabinet members backed the change and other revisions to the budget, which will now go to full council for final approval next week.

Council leader Jane Ashworth praised the campaigners for their efforts and acknowledged that the authority had 'undervalued' the importance of the cafe.

She said: "We were proposing, not to shut the cafe, but replace the hatch service with very sophisticated vending machines. But within a blink of an eye there were over 200 people who had signed a petition saying that they didn't want that and that they liked their little cafe.

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"So we had two public meetings with users, which I attended, and it became very clear that we had undervalued that cafe.

"The users were amazed at how much it was operating at a loss, but we were able to come to an arrangement with them where they will help us to promote it and reduce costs in other ways. We're in conversations now to create a Friends of Dimensions group.

"I think we did the right thing to listen to them. They were an impressive group of local people."

Since the original budget proposals were published last month, the government has announced that the city council will receive an extra £13.3 million over the next three years in an amendment to the authority's funding settlement.

Councillor Sarah Hill, cabinet member for finance, said it had been 'judged prudent' to use this additional funding to support pressures within children's and adult's social care.

Cllr Hill said: "Within the overall budget, cabinet is continuing to support the most vulnerable in our communities, with the significant investment we are making in children's and adult's social care, homelessness and SEND support.

"We are investing in our capital programme, protecting our heritage and improving the infrastructure within our city.

"However, the financial challenges facing our council remain significant, following years of underfunding and high levels of demand for services such as social care. Changes to the national funding formula made by the government are a positive step in the right direction.

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"The government has listened to the council and made changes to the settlement, which is pleasing to note."

Cllr Ashworth added: "It's true to say that the three Labour MPs in the city, together with us as councillors, did a pretty good job at forming alliances with other cities similar to ours to make it clear to the government that the amount of money they proposed to give us wasn't enough, and we needed more.

"To be able to lever out an extra £13 million was due to that hard work and lobbying."

Other changes to the budget include a £200,000 allocation to the youth skills Yes programme, which was previously supported by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, and an extra £204,000 of ringfenced funding for homelessness.