'Confusing' objection from football club delays plan to make 3G pitch a community asset

Whitby town councillors had been asked to approve a proposal to register a synthetic 3G outdoor pitch as an asset of community value (ACV) but plans have been postponed by an objection.

If councillors had signed off on the proposal at the full meeting on Tuesday, January 9, the plan would have gone to North Yorkshire Council for approval.

However, an objection by Whitby Town Football Club – understood to have been submitted on the day of the meeting – has delayed the application.

Approval by North Yorkshire Council would mean that owners wishing to sell the pitch would have to wait six months for locals to put together a bid to purchase it on the open market.

Speaking at the meeting, a representative of Social Enterprise International (ESI) said: “We were approached with a very uncontroversial request to make the land and the pitch an asset of community value, meaning that it becomes semi-protected.”

He said that ESI’s application was turned down because of international clauses in the organisation’s constitution and had turned to the Town Council as an alternative applicant.

However, it was noted that Whitby Town Football Club had submitted an objection to the plan.

Explaining the reason for the objection, the managing director of Whitby Town FC, Graeme Hinchliffe said: “It was not simply for the football club to benefit from the application not going ahead.”

In a post on the club’s website the next day, he added: “What we at the club want is for joined-up thinking to be applied to the project at Eskdale and what we offer as a community-based football club at The Turnbull Ground.”

He said the club objected because the plan was submitted “without giving others in our community the chance to understand what it really means and what impacts would be made should this community asset be developed”.

The ESI representative said the objection “doesn’t make any sense and is full of inaccuracies”.

However, councillors proposed that in light of the objection, a meeting should be held with all the interested parties “to have a discussion and then submit an application once we’re fully informed”.

Coun Linda Wild’s proposal that a decision be deferred “while we get things sorted out” was approved with one abstention.