Decision's Expected On Future Of International Cricket In Bristol

Wednesday, March 10th 2010 07:00

Bristol City Councillors are expected to make a decision later on whether redevelopment at Gloucestershire County Cricket Club can go ahead.

GCCC has been playing cricket at the Nevil Road ground since 1888 and international games have been hosted there since 1999. Cricket is the only major international sport to be played in Bristol.

Significant improvements to the facilities at GCCC need to be made in order to meet the standards set by the England & Wales Cricket Board for international matches.

The redevelopment proposals were submitted to Bristol City Council in October 2009 after discussions with planning officers and two public consultation exercises.

The key elements of the applications are to increase seating capacity from 16,000 to 20,000, to improve conferencing and hospitality facilities and to upgrade the media centre. The plans also include a makeover of the on site fitness club to include a swimming pool.

Planning officers have already recommended that the plans be approved by Councillors. A final ruling's expected at a meeting of the Development Control (North) committee at 4pm today (March 10th).

GCCC Chairman, Rex Body said: "Clearly we are pleased with the planning officer's recommendation but the ultimate decision lies with the elected members of the planning committee on Wednesday and we await that meeting with interest.

"It is difficult to stress the importance of the proposed developments to our long term future in Bristol, not only for the County team and the Club as a whole but also for our surrounding community. We are proactively seeking to expand our community links, including developing the current disability cricket programme, building on our existing links with local schools and strengthening the recreational club game including the creation of a "Gladiators" women's team. However, these ambitions will be severely curtailed without the improvements to the ground."

Some concerns have been raised by local residents about the increase in capacity on site and the knock on effect it may have on things like traffic congestion and parking problems in the area. Chief Executive of the club, Tom Richardson said: "We're raising the capacity from sixteen thousand to twenty thousand. The plan for when we had Elton John last year was for twenty thousand. There weren't twenty thousand but the plan was for that. And it's not as if this is going to happen every weekend. We're looking at this happening once, twice, during the course of the year."