Three consultancy firms are bidding for the job of helping to create a new culture and entertainment complex at the Old Gaol sports and leisure centre in Abingdon.

The Vale of White Horse District Council will next month choose one of the firms to draw up detailed proposals for the project by the end of the year.

The Old Gaol will close in late spring or early summer next year once the town's new £12m tennis and leisure centre, in Audlett Drive, is opened.

The consultants will seek the views of local organisations on how Old Gaol should be developed, and prepare funding plans.

Performing arts groups see the Old Gaol as an ideal centre. There have also been calls for a cinema to be provided now that the old Regal cinema is to be demolished next year as part of re-development plans.

Abingdon's library in The Charter is too small for current needs and the county library service wants to take space in the Old Gaol. Abingdon Museum's trustees say they are also keen to move from the old County Hall.

A restaurant, pub, shops, ten-pin bowling and rowing facilities are among other suggestions for the new centre.

Cllr Roz Smith, who is chairman of the district council's new Abingdon Area Forum, said: "We and the consultants will be looking at a wide range of ideas so we can have community facilities of which Abingdon can be proud."

The firms bidding for the work are FSP, which has been involved in the redevelopment of Albert Dock in Liverpool, Strategic Leisure and Gibson Hamilton, which have worked together at Nottingham and Tamworth castles, and Abingdon consultancy Scot Wilson, which is working on the Abbey Grounds restoration project in Abingdon.