THE Home Office has been slammed for poor design work on a police training centre to be built in North Yorkshire.

Officials have been told to go back to the drawing board and produce something more likely to win one of Prime Minister Tony Blair's better public buildings awards.

Conservation watchdogs who have attacked the look of a national police training centre to be built in Yew Tree Lane, Pannal Ash, Harrogate on the same site as one built in the 1920s - have been joined by borough council planners.

They have backed the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment's contention.

Little will remain of the present complex apart from the swimming pool. A stone central building will be replaced by one with wall tiles, stainless steel roofing and external stair towers, all of which has promoted the conservation watchdog group, Harrogate Civic Society, to say it has grave reservations.