The Faraday Road stand has found its way to Hungerford Town FC, the last steel sections on its old site here:
News updates April 2019
West Berks Council applies for planning permission to erect perimeter fencing and floodlights at Newbury Football Ground arounds its proposed multi-use games area (MUGA)! WHY?! We have a perfectly good application to build an artificial football pitch and facilities to cater for organised league and cup football. And WBC’s work will cost three times the £88,000 already mentioned by them. Given that there will be no developments in the London Road Estate for a long time, they could have left the ground as it was and the community would have retained its much needed facility.
The surprising MUGA planning application by the Council is here:
https://publicaccess.westberks.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=PPDK17RD04Z00
We need to secure at least 10 objections to it to force it to committee. This is further destruction of the existing facility, there is a lack lack of evidence to support its need, it’s counter to the need for formal football facilities, a waste of public money, contrary to WBC’s own policies.
It will cost more than the predicted £88k (maybe up to £300K) and we demand the council declare how much it has budgeted for the facility and how much it has budgeted for the replacement of the football ground.
The Council has failed to be transparent about its intentions, has misrepresented the nature of the new facility, has spent and committed yet more public funds without evidence and unnecessarily (added to which the is no way this could be classed as a priority when other services have been deprived of funding), failed to carry out consultation, breached its own planning policy (specific protection of the football ground – ADPP2 & CS18). It’s also counter-intuitive to its long term regeneration goal as the new facility will be destroyed by future redevelopment!
See the news blog for how to object either online:
or by email to:
planapps.westberks.gov.uk quoting reference 19/00814/FUL
