Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Football ground plans ‘waste of public money’
Canterbury City Council has been accused of wasting taxpayer’s money after handing over £75,000 to fund plans for a new football stadium as part of a “pie-in-the-sky” development.
Funding of £55,000 was given to Canterbury City FC to pay for design and consultation work for a new ground at Highland Court in Bridge. It was to form part of a £125 million sports and leisure complex - featuring 175 Cotswold-style holiday homes on protected countryside. But the development scheme was rejected by councillors after the authority’s planning officers listed 12 grounds for refusal - the main one being the damage it would cause to a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. A further £19,500 has since been given to the club to pursue new plans on the same site.
The money came from a £403,000 funding pot set aside by the council in 2015 to help the club find a new home. But opponents claim more scrutiny of the original High
land Court proposal should have been undertaken by the authority before handing over the money.
Bridge councillor Mike Sole (Lib Dem) said: “Surely before parting with such large sums of money the council should have checked whether there was any merit in the development or any realistic chance of it coming to fruition. “As it is, the council’s own officers found 12 grounds to recommend refusal of it, and even the leader publicly opposed it.
“I fully support the football club’s efforts to find a new home but this never stood a chance of being approved in an area of outstanding natural beauty, and that would have been plain to see on so many levels. It’s a huge waste of taxpayers’ money. “Local residents, parish councils and the Barham Downs Action Group will be furious to learn that when they were fighting this planning application it was in part being funded by Canterbury City Council.
“They will be even more angry to know that additional taxpayers’ money is being spent on a new planning application at Highland Court.” But club chairman Tim Clark insists the money was not wasted on a “fruitless” exercise and says the club - which costs £80,000 a year to run - still has ambitions to move to Highland Court through a new and much-reduced planning proposal. “We are continuing to work with Quinn Estates on a new scheme which involves no housing or Canterbury Rugby Club element,” he said. “This time we are trying a new route through the Local Plan ‘call for sites’, in which we hope a much smaller development, including a new stadium and training pitch, will be approved at Highland Court.
“We believe this proposal will be more acceptable to those who previously objected.
“The fact is we have been trying to find a new ground since 2013 and there is no alternative.
“But we believe there is still the political will within the council to make it happen.” The city council says there is “no validity” in claims the money should have been withheld because of what is widely thought to have been a limited chance of the scheme securing permission. Spokesman Rob Davies said: “Until such time as a planning application is submitted and can be properly tested against planning policy, it can never be known whether the proposal is acceptable in planning terms.
“The recommendation in the committee report was only known a week before the meeting, as is the case with all applications that come to committee.
“It is perfectly logical to have spent money from that set aside amount to fund the various pieces of planning work required. “Without doing so, the club would never have even got to the point where they could submit for planning, let alone build and occupy a ground.”