I attended the osc meeting this evening and one think I cannot get clear in my head is legally can SE make Thor build a new sporting facility.
It would be nice at both sets of meetings to have somebody from SE attend and fill us in as to exactly what they can and cannot do.
Do we all then start to get onto Thor.

pdw wrote:
Sport England can only act if Thor put in planning permissions for the land.

markust wrote:
Same as Phil, the question for me is (and I asked this tonight) does CW&C HAVE to take Sport England's decision into account when granting planning permission, therefore the Club gets a similar facilty somewhere else. Or, are they only obliged to listen to Sport England but can grant planning permission based on the merits of Thor's application, potentially meaning no new ground. I have asked different people and get different answers.

Do we all need to be careful that we don't get swept along on an emotional roller coaster that only focuses on a new ground?

Perhaps the 1st question that needs answering is, whatever SE CWAC or anyone else has to offer who do we want to take it forward?

At the moment the choice seems to be JR or the Trust, perhaps others come along as time passes? This is what JR is worried about - his reputation v the Trusts. CWAC and SE etc will need a partner to take any project forward and he is desperate to stay in the game as there may be commercial opportunities there for him.

A purely personal opinion is that if JR is the one who CWAC and SE decide to work alongside then the new ground is irrelevant to me - they can build it where they want- I won't be going near it.

Vicki England wrote:
Despite this being a huge smokescreen placed my Mr McNally, as I have provided in previous posts re the same question, attached is SE's Policy document which provides planning authortiy officers and other with guidance in relation to development control matters as they affect the interests of sport and active recreation.

Your particular attention is drawn to Section C(iii) which is entitled "Development Involving Playing Fields".

Broadly speaking, SE's policy is that they "will oppose the granting of planning permission for any development which would lead to the loss of, or prejudice the use of, all or any part of a playing field, or land last used as a playing field.....".

However, this general statement is caveated by several conditions, one of which (E4) reads as follows;

"The playing field or playing fields which would be lost as a result of the proposed
development would be replaced by a playing field or playing fields of an equivalent or
better quality and of equivalent or greater quantity, in a suitable location and subject to
equivalent or better management arrangements, prior to the commencement of the
development."

This condition also needs to be read in conjunction with the remainder of the document.

It needs to be noted that SE are a statutory consultee only and there are many occasions when planning authorities (which, in this case, is CWaC) choose to "ignore" representations from consultees. However, in many circumstances they do take into account the views of consultees by including conditions within any planning consent that either meet or partly meet the views of these bodies.

However, it also needs to be recognised that these conditions should be reasonable and not punative. If there are unreasonable and punative, then it is likely that the party seeking planning consent will appeal and in my experience will win.

Hence, it may be that CWaC will place some obligations on Thor re the future provision of "sporting facilities" to replace those 'lost' by the re-development of the VS. However, if anyone thinks that this will result in them being required to construct a 'replacement' staduim of equal standard elsewhere in the town, the cost of which will be significantly in excess of the sum they paid for the VS, then frankly they are living in cloud-cuckoo land! No Council in their right mind would impose such conditions upon any future development, if for no other reason that;

i) They would lose any appeal (and this would cost them a packet)
ii) Their credibility with local businesess / potential inward investors would be shot
iii) Why would they?

Hope this assists with the questions that have been raised.

Sorry - forgot to add that E4 is probably the condition that McNally is trying to use to hood-wink fans to believe that Thor must provide a "replacement stadium" somewhere in the town at their expense.

As if....