Stocksbridge Park Steels £705,000 grant decision delayed by 'serious questions'

Stocksbridge Park Steels FC is due to receive the grant to deliver a new artificial all-weather 3G football pitch at its Bracken Moor ground on Bracken Moor Lane.

The project is part of the £24.1m Stocksbridge Town Deals government regeneration scheme agreed in 2021. The project is being driven by the independent 12-member Stocksbridge Towns Fund Board.

Sheffield City Council administrates the funds and the finance and performance committee has to approve the handover of money for projects.

A meeting of the committee yesterday (June 15) agreed that members did not have enough information before them to feel confident to sign off on the grant handover.

Coun Mike Levery, LibDem group spokesman on the committee, said: “We haven’t had a briefing on Stocksbridge Town Funds for a year and then all of a sudden we’re being presented with projects for approval.”

Coun Levery said he wanted to be better briefed on projects before meetings so he could make an informed decision.

“In effect we’re awarding a grant to a football club and I don’t know what this entity is – is it a private company with shareholders? It’s certainly not a public limited company.

“Is it a charity? What are we actually awarding the grant to and is that within the legal requirements for us to award grants?”

Legal counsel David Hollis said that the grant would go to the trustees of the club.

Coun Levery said the intention a year ago had been to get match funding from the Football Foundation. He said that hadn’t happened because the foundation will only approve 3G pitches where the community has access.

He added: “This is public money and we’re awarding funding to a football club who’s got a volunteer who’s chasing grants. This should be done by tender, a project of this size and scale, not by a volunteer seeking monies to do it.

“I’ve got serious questions about the way this is going forward. In my judgement, this should have been delivered by the council with a tender and a properly-scoped plan for what they want to do.”

He also questioned why £350,000 is being taken off high street regeneration, which is the key aim of the overall project.

Committee chair Coun Elle Dodd said there had been a pre-meeting for councillors to ask questions but she understood Coun Levery had been unable to attend that session.

She said: “The Town Fund Board itself exists to make decisions about what that the Towns Fund money should be spent on. We’re the accountable body for that spend.

“The process is such that they make decisions about what they want to do. I think that it’s quite an important part of democracy that if a local group is set up to make decisions there, that we don’t try to overrule those decisions without due cause from the centre.”

Green group leader Coun Angela Argenzio said: “I think it’s really important to go back to that fact that the decision of how the money is spent is actually not Sheffield City Council’s.

“It is the Stocksbridge Town Fund Board that decide how they want to spend the money. It’s a tenet of the democratic process that that money is for that area and they decide.

“We are holding the finance but we’re not making the decisions in terms of how to spend the money and how it’s evolved because costs have gone up etc.

“It would be really inappropriate and unjust for us to tell people in any part of the city where they’ve got funding specific to them for us to tell them how to spend it.”

Reform UK group spokesman on the committee, Coun Jack Byrom, said that he agreed with Coun Levery that it would not be prudent to approve the proposal before those questions had been answered.

Coun Levery said that the council has to be accountable for how the money is spent and is assured it’s being spent in the most effective way.

“It’s not about allocation, it’s about delivery, and this our role in this project and we have to make sure we do the work.”

A petition from Millie Skinner calling for a pause to the football pitch plans was also read out at the meeting. It described the scheme as “a severe financial liability” that lacked due diligence.

It said the land is Coal Authority-designated “huge risk site” as it has been undermined and is also subject to flooding. “Safe development requires numerous further assessments and impact appraisals,” the petition said.

The petition said that making the ground safe will cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, causing the cost of the project to spiral and running the risk of uninsurable public liability claims.

The petition warned: “This is a legal and financial minefield. Don’t fall into it as an earthmover did the last time they tried to develop it.”

The decision will now be added to the agenda of an extraordinary finance committee meeting next Monday (June 22).

This was already scheduled to discuss the acquisition of 517 Manchester Road, Stocksbridge on behalf of the Stocksbridge Towns Deal Board.