Come to Os

Nurse and Jackson own seven acres of land behind the Link Road industrial estate on Murton Way and argue that easy access from the A64 and the existing nearby Park & Ride site make it the perfect location for a new 10,000-seater sports complex.

The plot is the first green-belt land available travelling eastbound towards Murton, and Nurse's field has been bored to 20 metres to confirm its foundations are sound.

There are also no pylons to remove, which could be an expensive consideration at other potential sites, and Nurse, 62, has indicated that he would be prepared to accept less than the commercial market value if the football club and the City of York Council wanted to build a new stadium in his "backyard".

The cost of a seven-acre plot in Osbaldwick with planning permission for commercial use is believed to be approximately £1.4million.

Nurse, who owned Haxby's West End Garage for more than 20 years, said: "Myself and Stan have seven acres of land available between us. Mine has been farming land in the past and I've had it for nearly ten years.

"It's been approved for a touring caravan site so it already has permission for an entrance and it has good access off the A64 without going through Osbaldwick. I want to help the football club.

"In the past, I wanted to build starter homes at affordable prices for the young people who can't afford property in York any more. I remember getting my first mortgage and thinking 'How am I going to pay £15 a month', so I appreciate how difficult it is for first-time buyers now.

"My proposal was to build 60 houses which would be sold from £85,000 each but the council refused it without consideration because it was on green-belt land. Green-belt land can only be used for farming, forestry, a nursing home or recreation and, in my opinion, a football stadium counts as recreation."

Jackson, who is a light haulier, said: "I believe it would be possible to build a football stadium on the land and I would be interested in both the club's and council's thoughts."

His wife Val, who is a season-ticket holder at Bootham Crescent, added: "Last season when it looked like the club were being kicked out of their home I said, as a joke, we can let them play in our backyard and I don't know if that gave Geoff this idea."

City's stadium development director Ian McAndrew welcomed Nurse and Jackson's offer and added that the football club and council are interested to hear from anybody with sensible and feasible ideas.

McAndrew and the City of York Council will be working together to identify a suitable site by 2007 and the football club board member re-iterated that any decision on a site was likely to take at least two years.

He also added that six acres is likely to be the minimum size for any site with space for car parking and enabling developments, such as a hotel complex, possibly required.

McAndrew said: "Bootham Crescent is just over four acres and is not big enough for a modern stadium. Realistically it has got to be a minimum of six acres and maybe seven but that would depend on how you are with car parking and whether other things like hotel complexes are to be considered.

"You have got to think about the profitability of a stand-alone stadium. There might need to be scope to build other developments.

"Bootham Crescent has very little income-generating potential aside from on a matchday whereas the new KC Stadium in Hull, although a lot bigger than what we are planning, has a conference centre and has other daily uses. Huntington Stadium, where we hoped to move if we could not stay at Bootham Crescent, has four-and-a-half acres with 200 car parking spaces on different land.

"The situation at the moment is I have already had a number of people who have said to me 'You could put a football stadium on my land'. We will not disregard anything but everything will be done in consultation with the local authority."

Ground quest still fresh

York City's process of finding a suitable place for the football club to relocate was still in its infancy insisted the club's stadium development director Ian McAndrew.

He told the Evening Press: "We are beginning the search and meetings are taking place.

"A lot of effort has been put into saving Bootham Crescent and we are now working together to build a stadium that will suit the city of York as well as the football club.

"We have got to go through a process of elimination so we invite anybody with an idea to write to us.

"We want to look at as many sites as possible because we have a clean sheet of paper.

"We need to put them on one list and talk to the local authority. I don't envisage there will be a site that we can make an instant decision on.

"There's so many issues to consider and we are perhaps looking for two or three sites that satisfy eight out of the ten requirements. Whatever the case, there are likely to be massive green-belt issues as there are limited amounts of brown-belt land around.

"The public will also have a big say in any decision over where it will be as that is the system but I think we are looking at two years, at least, to identify a site."

Updated: 10:54 Wednesday, June 23, 2004