Come and see Village plan is alive, Hood tells Rhodes

Rhodes had suggested in yesterday's Yorkshire Post that the city's two major sporting clubs need to merge and play together at the Valley Parade football ground if they are both to transform their fortunes.

He argued that in the wake of another "collapsed" deal for Odsal's re-development, it was the sensible solution.

But Hood retorted: "To quote Mark Twain, reports of the death of Odsal Sporting Village are greatly exaggerated.

"Julian Rhodes talks about the scheme being dead, having collapsed, being kicked into touch and bit the dust but that's just not the case.

"I'll invite him along to our next meeting of the partners group on May 13. If he is willing, he can come and see the representatives from Sport England, Yorkshire Forward, Bradford College, Bradford University, Bradford Bulls and others all talking about the sporting village and all fully believing it is going to happen."

A decision by the Learning and Skills Council to freeze funding for major campus refurbishment plans at Bradford College, a major partner in the proposed Osdal Sporting Village, left the local authority with just 19.3m of the required money for the original 75.5m plan.

That alerted City but, although Bradford Council and the partners are now exploring other scaled-down schemes, Hood also insisted there is still scope for the initial blueprint to eventually materialise.

"We could probably only go up to 45m or 50m if the scheme now continued as a public partnership with the likes of the college and university," he said.

"But we are talking to private developers who can possibly come in and help deliver the 75m version.

"That is still on-going. Julian Rhodes also suggested Odsal should be sold by the council and the money should be put into moving to Valley Parade but the council does not own Odsal. Bradford Bulls does."

Hood maintained the Super League club envisage bulldozers will finally move in on the Odsal site at some stage next year.