COUNCILLORS have this evening voted to push on with the Community Stadium project, but the chance of standing terraces at the new ground has been quashed for good.

The City of York Council’s ruling Executive met to hear progress reports on the planned new stadium complex, and approved the project team’s requests to start on some early works for the site.

But at the meeting, Cllr Nigel Ayre, who as executive member for leisure and culture is responsible for the stadium project, told members of the public that terracing could not be part of the scheme.

He said the Football Stadia Improvement Fund has confirmed they would withdraw their £2 million funding if the plans were altered to include terracing.

The early works now approved will include demolition of the stadium and Waterworld – saving the council upwards of £25,000 a month in rates, security, and maintenance - as well as the extension to the Park and Ride and detailed designed work.

However, plans to start appropriating council-owned land around Huntington Stadium needed for the wider project have had to be held back, while “further work” is undertaken, the director of communities Sally Burns told councillors.

The stadium report also included a commitment to keep Yearsley Pool open for the full 13 year term of the contract to run all council leisure services, and Yearsley Pool campaigner Fiona Evans thanked the new council administration for ensuring a future for the historic facility.

There was criticism of earlier handling of the stadium project, with Cllr Ayre saying the “Design, Build, Operate and Maintain” procurement process opted for by the previous Labour administration had been the most complex possible, and “not the option I would have chosen.”

Cllr Ayre added: “This is of course the first time the stadium has come before this Executive. We are fully behind it, and we think we can deliver it on this timetable.”

The fresh report shows that the stadium will not be ready for occupation by the football or rugby clubs until 2017 – later than the earlier scheduled dates of 2016.

But Executive leader Cllr Chris Steward denied reports that the stadium had been delayed again and again, saying his new administration and set out a realistic timetable which they could deliver.

The same meeting saw the Executive opt to ask council staff to start work on a licensing scheme for advertising and “A boards” on pavements in York.

Shopkeeper Sue Barnes-Wilson, of Gillies Fabrics on Peter Lane, had spoken to the councillors urging them not to harm small business by banning from them advertising, and making it ever harder to get customers through the door.

Head of highways Tony Clarke said it was a “sensitive issue” which required a balance between the needs of businesses, and people trying to get around the city safely.

An earlier plan for a code of conduct had been scrapped after legal representation from the RNIB about the council’s responsibilities under highways law.

Cllr Ian Gillies said: “In certain places there are as many as five A boards outside a premises, and that cannot be allowed to continue.”