Worcestershire | Archive | 2006 | March | 13
From the archive, first published Monday 13th Mar 2006.
A YOUTH football team is being prevented from building much-needed community and sporting facilities - even though its proposed site is lying empty.
Warndon Villages Football Club, which has 260 players under 14, wants to build a children's learning centre and football pitches on a site close to the M5, and has spent £4,000 on architects' drawings.
But the fields belong to developers Persimmon Homes and Taylor Woodrow who have held on to the land, even though Worcester City Council will not let houses or offices be built there.
Phil Pane, the club's project manager, said Warndon Villages was crying out for such a facility.
He said: "We are planning not just a grassed area for football but a whole learning facility the community and school can use, which the area is desperate for. We want a hall to hold 300 children and an environmental area to capture the whole curriculum.
"We have been speaking to Persimmon and Taylor Woodrow who would want to see a return for their money, but we are a voluntary group and we wouldn't be able to afford that."
Mr Pane said the club would apply for planning permission, even without the developers' consent, and hope the council would make a compulsory purchase order on the land, which is to the south of Warndon Wood.
David Hobbs, senior planning officer at Worcester City Council, said: "We see this piece of land as a green wedge between the motorway and the houses, but councillors have said the football club's plans would be OK.
"As most of the children live in Warndon Villages, dragging them across the city is not sustainable and there is an evident need."
Steve Roberts, the land director at Persimmon Homes South Midlands, said: "Following positive discussions with Warndon Villages Football Club in the past, we are happy to sit down with them again."
© Newsquest Media Group 2008