Council's delays jeopardise £1.3m football scheme

The chair of a grassroots football club has said a £1.3m investment is being put in jeopardy due to a local council failing to complete the necessary paperwork for work to begin.

Crewe FC has more than 600 players across 36 teams – including boys, girls and disability football.

In January the club was given planning permission for a new 3G pitch, changing rooms and other facilities – but a licence for the work is still being processed by Cheshire East Council.

The local authority said it was working with the club to secure the necessary access permissions.

Chairman Steve Parker said the project was important because Crewe had not seen a significant investment in its sports facilities for about 10 years.

Despite previous concerns about planning delays, everything seemed to be in place when consent was granted in January.

Work on the club's building needed to be completed before starting work on the pitch, Mr Parker said – and the pitch element needed to begin no later than April due to deadlines included in the funding agreements.

Mr Parker said the council had told them in September that it was preparing the necessary paperwork in order to grant the licence – and the club had submitted the details the authority needed in November.

However, in January the council said there could be a further delay of up to three months to get the licence signed off.

If they were unable to get the licence approved soon, the builder might re-quote for the job and likely increase their fees due to current market conditions, Mr Parker said.

"The club is run entirely by volunteers – yet we are managing to do everything we need to do, and then you've got the local authority, whose job it actually is to contribute to their own playing pitch strategy, causing delays."

Despite having all the funding in place and the council promising to support the project, the delays were threatening to scupper the scheme completely.

He said the council were "not good teammates" and lacked the ability to communicate effectively.

In a statement, Cheshire East Council said it was continuing to work with Crewe FC "to secure the required legal site access permissions needed to construct the scheme" and added that it needed "third party consents".

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