£75m sports village falls victim to cash crunch

Last June, councillors agreed to push forward with a scheme to redevelop Odsal stadium and replace the ageing Richard Dunn Sports Centre. It included a new 18,000 all-seat stadium for Bradford Bulls, a community sports centre with a 25-metre pool, a 120-bed hotel,80,000sq ft of sports retailing and parking.

But a decision by the Learning and Skills Council to freeze funding for major campus refurbishment plans at the partner Bradford College has delivered a massive blow to the sports village plans.

It has left the council with only 19.3m of the 75.5m costs secured, made up of 15m committed from the authority's own capital budget, 4.1m from regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward and 200,000 from England Netball.

Bradford's assistant director of leisure services, Phil Barker, said: "The council and its partners are still ambitious in their aspiration to deliver a high quality sports village for Bradford and will endeavour to achieve this goal.

"The report to the council's executive is asking for all design options and funding avenues to be explored in order to deliver the facilities everyone seeks. No options are being crossed off the list at this stage."

Bradford councillor Chris Greaves said: "It is a great shame this has happened and it would seem totally unfair to blame either the council or the college.

"The Richard Dunn Sports Centre is hardly in its first flush of youth and while the Bulls have made great strides there is only so much that they can be expected to do.''

An executive meeting to discuss the report takes place at City Hall, Bradford, next Tuesday.