Impressive City (From York Press)

Impressive City

11:49am Friday 18th May 2012 in Letters

I WOULD like to congratulate everybody involved with York City, following an excellent season that reaches its climax on Sunday.

I am impressed with the way the owners and their manager conducted themselves in a calm, dignified and professional manner. The owners have done everything that could be asked in order to ensure the club remains viable.

They have helped to complete a full appraisal of the sites available for the new community stadium, and through public consultation and involvement they have come up with the best option.

The Monks Cross site is perfect in terms of its direct access to the ring road and the A64. It is also close to centres of population such as Huntington and Haxby. I cannot think of a better location for the stadium and it is certainly more suitable than Bootham Crescent.

With a ground capacity of only 6,000, it is nothing like the white elephant that is the 25,000 all-seater Northern Echo Stadium in Darlington.

Without the stadium, part-time football could result in the dismantling of our excellent football club, with the loss of our best players to the bigger clubs and a permanent return to the lower leagues of football.

P Thompson, Shiptonthorpe, York.

• I HAVE read lots of views about the new community stadium/retail scheme at Monks Cross and the comments made.

I am sure an inspector will eventually decide this matter as our planners have ducked from making a recommendation.

However one thing perplexes me. York City FC are supposedly putting money into the stadium from the sale of Bootham Crescent once loans to the Football Federation and directors are paid off. There are reports by officers its worth circa £3.7 million.

However the council’s own policies restrict the value per acre to approximately £250,000 as a result of their adopting Professor Fordham’s viability studies on affordable housing. If it is nearly four acres that makes a maximum of £1,000,000 for the site, Why do our politicians assume there will be lots of money for City to put towards the new stadium? Are we being misled, do they not understand the effects of their own policies, or do they just not want to admit the truth?

I feel the scheme should proceed, but believe the council should be honest about the true costs to ratepayers. I would love to hear a reasoned answer to this question.

John Reeves, The Square, Tadcaster Road, York.