THE sudden closures of South East Cornwall's two leisure centres have left customers feeling angry.

The doors were closed and customers asked to leave at the Cornwall Council-owned Lux Park Leisure Centre in Liskeard and Saltash Leisure Centre on Friday evening. Both centres have remained shut since then.

At Liskeard, two major events have had to be cancelled: the British Heart Foundation swimathon and a marathon aerobiking session for Children In Need.

Tempus Leisure, which runs the council's leisure centres, put a statement up on its website from the council on Tuesday.

The council said it had been notified by Tempus Leisure about an issue with the maintenance of the heating and ventilation plant at the two centres, and the council had asked the company to close the buildings to allow remedial works to take place.

The statement said: 'The work centres on the replacement of filters and the cleaning of ductwork. It was scheduled to be undertaken in early 2014 but the work programme has been brought forward. We are working together to get the centres reopened as soon as possible.'

The biggest customer at Lux Park is Liskeard School and Community College next door which uses the building for PE lessons.

A school spokesperson said: 'We arrived in school on Monday to receive an email which had been sent over the weekend to tell us Lux Park had been closed until further notice. No further contact has been made with the school since which I feel is discourteous to say the least. This has had a huge and detrimental effect. We have had to cancel lessons, school clubs and events organised with our feeder primary schools.'

Swimming lessons for the public and clubs have also been cancelled.

Customers have complained about the lack of a proper explanation for the closures.

Marketing manager at Tempus Leisure Marc Laundon said on Tuesday: 'We have been doing our best to contact as many customers as possible. We understand it is really frustrating for everyone and we are hoping to reopen Saltash shortly and Liskeard as soon as possible.

'The closure just before the weekend couldn't have happened at a worse time and we apologise.'