OPPOSITION councillors have called for “urgent action” over a new delay to York’s community stadium project.
The 6,000-seater ground for York City FC and York City Knights is now unlikely to be completed until January 2016, having originally been expected to open at the start of the 2014/15 season before being pushed back a year.
City of York Council said the discovery of protected newts at the neighbouring site of a shopping development which will provide stadium funding has caused the latest hold-up, despite initially saying this would not delay work on the sports scheme.
Liberal Democrat councillor Nigel Ayre said the council’s cross-party community stadium advisory group, which he had been a member of before it was disbanded, should be immediately re-established so the authority “gets on top of the current issues”, saying the project was already £450,000 over budget.
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