A spanking new sports ground on the north side of York at no cost to the council tax-payer. It must be good news. So why is the council opposed to it? STEPHEN LEWIS reports.

FROM the road, the land doesn't look up to much. A patch of scrubby grassland, dotted with thistles and clumps of darker, longer grass. There are the remains of a thorn hedge and on the horizon you can just glimpse the outline of York Minster, partly obscured by a muddle of farm buildings.

In his mind's eye, however, Tony Tate can already see the £7 million sports ground that this field could soon become.

"In here will be the car park," he says, clutching his plans in one hand and gesturing the 11-acre site that lies next to the road. "Those are the tennis courts, and that will be the five-a-side football field." He points at an area just behind the red brick block of the ikon & Diva nightclub.

We are standing on the York ring road at Clifton Moor, near to the Wigginton Road roundabout. Tony, chairman of the York area association of the Civil Service Sports Council, has just received news that a planning inspector has overruled City of York Council planners and approved the CSSC's plans for a new indoor and outdoor sports complex.

If all goes well, there will soon be two full-sized football pitches here; a cricket pitch; four outdoor tennis courts; and 12 all-weather outdoor five-a-side football pitches. On the side of the field nearest ikon & Diva and Megabowl, there will also be a two-floor sports building with swimming pools, health and fitness studios, a gym, two squash courts, changing rooms, a sauna and steam, aromatherapy, spa and relaxation rooms.

It sounds like great news for York. First-class new sports facilities at no cost to the local council tax payer, which will - as a condition of planning approval - be available to everyone in York, whether a member of the Civil Service Sports Council or not.

Tony insists he has "no problem at all" with the requirement that the facilities should be open to paying members of the public. "The more people that use it, the better," he says. "It will be for the people of York. Even Mr Blair himself is saying that the nation needs to be fitter not fatter, and this will certainly help with that."

City planning chiefs are far from pleased, however.

On the face of it, their opposition centres around concerns that the sports ground will eat into green belt land - and more specifically, the 'green wedge' that runs into the centre of the city between Clifton Moor and New Earswick.

It was concern about the impact on green belt that prompted city planners to unanimously reject the proposals last October.

Coun Ann Reid, the city's executive member for planning, said then that if the sports ground was allowed "we would have great difficulty in resisting further developments on green belt land".

Nothing has happened since - neither the two-day planning inquiry held at the beginning of last month, nor the planning inspector's decision - to make her change her mind.

In his decision, the inspector makes clear that in his view a sports ground on the site "would not be sufficient to disrupt the green wedge".

"I'm very surprised that he has taken that attitude," says Coun Reid. "We thought it the plan was wrong or we would not have voted against it in the first place. I think the principle of green wedge coming into the city from all sides is a very important one. Most people think of York as being quite green. Maintaining this wedge is very important, and I think this could lead to problems in future."

The green belt issue may be only one reason for the council's reluctance about the scheme, however.

The council seems to have a history of being unsympathetic to the club. The sports ground is intended to replace the CSSC's previous 14-acre ground in Boroughbridge Road, which opened in 1951 and closed a year ago.

Since then, clubs which used the old ground have been scattered, Tony says - with cricket going to Heslington, football to Kirk Hammerton, archery to British Sugar, and other sports dispersing to various other locations in the city.

The old ground, Tony says, was outdated and losing money - and one of the reasons it had to close was the lack of a rates rebate from the city council.

In the old days, when the ground fell within the boundary of Harrogate Borough Council, the CSSC received a rebate of 55 per cent of its rates. In the first year after the boundary changes, when the ground first came within the boundary of City of York Council, that was upped to a 100 per cent rebate.

But the next year the rebate was cancelled - and right up until the ground closed last year, the council refused to subsidise it, arguing that not enough ordinary York people were able to use the facilities.

The council is angry about what has happened to the Borough-bridge Road site since the CSSC abandoned it. In August, the CSSC was forced to get an injunction from York County Court to move on travellers who had set up camp there. This state of affairs has not impressed city council leader Coun Steve Galloway. The site is a disgrace, he says.

Despite the history, however, given that planning approval for the new sports ground is now a done deal, surely it is good that York will get state-of-the-art new facilities on the north side of the city at no cost to the local council tax payer?

Ann Reid remains grudging. Yes, if the facilities can be used for the benefit of the people of York, then it will be good, she says. "But it will be very difficult for the Civil Service Sports Council to provide these facilities at a cost that residents are willing or able to pay."

The cost has yet to be decided. Residents of York who are not members of the CSSC would be able to pay on the day for the use of facilities: or they would be able to take out a monthly membership. Tony Tate talks of a membership fee of something like £40 a month for non civil servants. That figure is only a guess, he insists, and whether it would entitle you to use of the indoor facilities only, or the outdoor ones as well, he is not sure.

Under the conditions of the planning approval, the city council will have to approve details of the way in which the new sports ground is opened to the public - including, presumably, its pricing policy.

So the council has an opportunity to try to ensure charges are kept at a reasonable rate.

The council seems unlikely to consider any form of subsidy. "But we will have to sit down and talk to them the CSSC and developers S Harrison development Ltd of Malton," says Ann Reid. "It will be up to the council to make these conditions work for the people of York."

Before any of that happens, however, the new sports ground will have to be built. Another of the conditions of planning approval is that work should begin within five years. Tony Tate is keen to emphasise the CSSC's commitment. The new sports ground won't fall into the same trap of declining use and lack of cash to meet running costs that forced closure of the old ground, he says, because it will be open for everybody. And the CSSC wouldn't have bothered paying an expensive QC to appeal the council's refusal of planning permission if they hadn't been determined to go ahead.

Steve Galloway, however, appears to doubt whether the scheme will ever get off the ground.

"If what has been passed happens, in many ways it will be good for the city," he says - begging the question of why the council opposed the plans in the first place.

"But I will be interested to see what happens. I do think there are still some twists and turns to come on this issue."

Watch this space.

Updated: 11:19 Tuesday, October 05, 2004