Faraday Road is ideal location for football

IT was, of course, no surprise that the new rather unaptly named Sports Hub passed through the council (Newbury Weekly News, December 23).

Despite the sponsor of the proposal, councillor Woollaston, stepping down from the committee only to be replaced by Lynne Doherty, the leader, to maintain the Tory majority.

What should have happened, or at least been more honest and transparent, would have been to bring in someone independent from another council to chair the meeting and avoid political bias. Apart from the gutter politics it makes no sense at all for several reasons:

1. We end up spending an estimated £12m to end up with the same number of pitches and a little less in playing area.

2. There already was a perfectly good pitch that had been deliberately neglected.

It could be restored far more economically and if the council is worried about how many times you can play on grass it could have been upgraded with an artificial surface.

3. The location is ideal.

The clubhouse could once again house events and functions without disturbing residents nearby.

The same cannot be said of Monks Lane, where residents are likely to suffer major disturbance from traffic noise and maybe hooligans.

It seems the whole project is driven by a financial folly of trying to turn the London Road Industrial Estate into something it isn’t and won’t be.

The jewel in the crown is of course the old football pitch which in the myopic view of councillor Mackinnon (portfolio holder for finance and economic development) will be turned into a housing estate.

Have they applied for any planning permission to see if their plans can work? No.

This means if they can’t get planning permission, despite the convenience of being the local planning authority, then heaven knows how much money will have been wasted on their vanity