Plea over rugby stadium’s stand
Club makes call to protect vaccine effort and city events
Taking down Bath Rugby’s east stand would put a Covid19 vaccination centre out of action and could threaten key city events, club bosses say.
The club only has planning permission for a stadium on the Rec until May next year but a condition says the east stand, pictured, is meant to come down every summer. It was allowed to remain in throughout last year and the club is asking for that same flexibility in 2021.
The request has been backed by Bath Recreation, which owns the land. John Flinn, the charity’s chief executive, said in a letter submitted with the application: “The east stand is proving to be a critical factor in what we and a number of long-standing community event organisers are trying to plan.” Mr Flinn said removing the stand turns the Rec into a building site and would put the Covid-19 vaccination centre at the Pavilion out of action for a “critical six-week period”.
He added: “Significant community events are in grave danger if they are not able to plan to take place in 2021 - another year of hiatus could see the city lose key events for the future. Interrupting the vaccination roll out would be worse.”
A condition on the planning permission for the stadium says construction work should not start more than four weeks before the first game of the season and the east stand should be removed three weeks after the last match.
Bath Rugby - which wants to build a permanent new stadium on the Rec - said availability of contractors could delay taking down the east stand, and it had to “consider the morality of unnecessarily bringing together 50 people to work on the project simply to fulfil a planning technicality at this time”. The club said the last playing date for the Premiership season is June 13 but fixtures after that are possible so it will need a stadium.
“A request was made to the council in March 2020 to allow the retention of the East Stand in situ throughout the summer of 2020.”
Bath and North East Somerset Council agreed to that, due to a need for flexibility during these exceptional times”. The club is again asking for “flexibility”.
The council will decide the fate of the application.