A condemned ice rink could be saved after a backlash against proposals to close it for good.

Islington Council announced earlier this month that while it would reopen part of Sobell Leisure Centre after it was damaged by flooding last year, the venue’s ice rink would be axed.

The council said the rink was no longer financially viable, operating at a loss of £250,000 a year before it closed last summer.

Local ice skating groups said they were "shocked" by the decision and urged the council and operator GLL to reconsider - also revealing the number of users may have been miscounted and was too low.

Now Cllr Nurullah Turan, the council’s executive member for health and social care, says the authority will reach out to other ice rink operators “to discuss alternative business models” among them the 'green ice rink' model used at Ozone in Bracknell, Berkshire.

He said: “We’re committed to hearing views on our proposals from the wider community, including those that regularly used the ice rink.

“Following this, we have reached out to both Ozone and other ice operators to set up meetings, to discuss alternative business operating models to see if these could address the challenges associated with reopening the Sobell ice rink.”

The latest development comes after one Sobell Ice Skating Club member told Islington Gazette she believed with better management, the rink would be financially viable.

Keen ice skater Alison Millar said she suspected more people were using the rink than was officially recorded, claiming that block bookings for up to 30 people were often marked as a single booking.

Islington Council, which used the low-user numbers to justify the rink’s closure, has now conceded that this was indeed the case.

This means that the rink was averaging 590 users a week, rather than the 475 users originally reported.

Cllr Nurullah Turan said: “In our conversations with ice rink users and other interested residents, the figure we provided for ice rink usage has been queried.

“Having looked further into this, GLL found that a block booking for the Sobell Ice Club was inadvertently marked down as a single booking.

“This means that, prior to its closure, the ice rink had approximately 590 users per week, rather than the originally stated 475 users.   

 “We apologise for any confusion that this has caused.”