In an about face, city councillors have decided to include several key items that were chopped out of the Wayne Gretzky Centre renovation due to budget overruns.

Less than a week ago, council voted to scale down the original design, but now has reversed its decision and will go ahead with a 1,000-seat arena, running track, therapy pool, and 3,300 square foot sports hall of recognition, putting the project about $5.8 million over budget, according to councillor Greg Martin.

And several councillors attributed the flip flop to negative feedback from user groups.

"I think we moved a little too quick last week," Coun. Mark Littell said.

Council last week met at a special session and chopped $5.5 million worth of items from the project, inspiring strong feedback from the sports community.

The Brantford Minor Hockey Association, Brantford Church Hockey League and Brantford Girls' Hockey Association sent a letter to council in response to the cuts.

Carolyn Rollins, president of the BMHA, lauded council for listening to the user groups after this week's decision.

"One positive thing was the fact that they were willing to listen to the community and open it back up to discussion," she said. "On the negative side, it concerns me that (council) tends to make spur of the moment decisions without much thought."

Mayor Mike Hancock said the bright side of the hastily-made decision was that it spurred the public to contact council and make their needs for the sports centre known.

Coun. Jennifer Kinneman was in favour of bringing the items back to the project, particularly for the sake of user groups.

"We were really just going to be building some more of the same crap," she said.

Coun. Richard Carpenter and Martin, chair of the group charged with bringing down the cost, both expressed an interest in fundraising to make up the difference and staff were directed to prepare a report looking at other sources in the budget to make up the additional costs and look at fundraising opportunities.

The renovation of the Wayne Gretzky Centre was intended to be funded in equal parts by the federal, provincial and municipal governments and come in at a cost of approximately $48.6 million. Brantford is now responsible for making up the difference not covered by the infrastructure funding.

(With files from Tom Kennedy)