Students lobby for York stadium

A Stadium For York initiative has been targeting councillors and local politicians for several months now, in efforts to convince York City Council that York City Football Club should have a new stadium. The issue has now become one concerning many students, and dividing opinion within YUSU, as it has been revealed that a site on Hull Road, near the Heslington East Development site, is one of the potential locations.

York City Football Club, founded in 1922, currently play at Bootham Crescent (formally know as KitKat Crescent until their sponsorship deal with Nestle expired in January of this year), which has a capacity of 9,196. However, with the stadium in need of repair and soon to be replaced by housing within a couple of years, York's board revealed their plans in 2007 to build a new stadium within 5 years, which they believe can also be used as a concert venue. The leader of York City Council at the time, Steve Galloway, laid the foundations for a 10,000 seat stadium, which could also be home to the Rugby League team, York City Knights. However, a group of activists became concerned that the plans might not go ahead, and set up the 'A Stadium For York' campaign to lobby the council to put their plans into action. It is believed that the stadium could also provide other leisure, business, community facilities, along with £1 million towards athletics. Planning permission will have to be achieved by May 2012 in order to go through with the plans.

During the General Election, all three of the York Central candidates pledged their support in the campaign, which has since expanded onto the social networking sites facebook and twitter, and has developed a website, in which they argue that a new community stadium is needed to keep York City Football Club and the York City Knights alive, as well as bringing enormous advantages to the community at large. The campaign also has the support of the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu.

The issue has since been the subject of debate on campus, since Jason Rose proposed a motion to mandate YUSU to lobby the university and York City Council, in last week's UGM, for the stadium to be developed near Heslington East.

Tim Atkins, who is Project Manager of the Stadium, has confirmed that a site on Hull Road is one of three possible locations for the stadium. The stadium will have a capacity of 6,000, but the university are also proposing to build a new sports centre on the same site. It is thought that by combining the two projects, it would be financially beneficial.

Sam Asfahani, York Sport President-elect, had noted that a stadium close to Hes East would potentially be a Roses venue, subject to the outcome of negotiation, and as such, the motion had York Sport backing.

YUSU President Tim Ngwena was also in favour of the motion, praising the potential improvements it could make to traffic congestion around Heslington East, as well as providing students with high quality sporting activities, as well as giving the university its much desired swimming pool.

However, whilst the motion had the support of key members of YUSU, there has been opposition, not only from Felix Bungay, Chairman of the York Tories, who expressed concern that the stadium would produce unwanted rowdiness and noise, but also from Lewis Bretts and Rihanna Kinchin. Student Activities officer Kinchin argued that it would take away support from other worthy causes, such as the Debating chamber, and would require a huge amount of resources to campaign for.

Despite this opposition, the motion passed with 322 votes for and 171 votes against, making it now part of YUSU policy to lobby for a stadium.

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