Good news that the York Council, York City FC and the Knights Rugby Club seemed to have reached a more robust agreement for playing matches at Bootham Crescent.

The next fixture in the “super 8’s” contest has been confirmed for Sunday afternoon (2:00pm) at the ground.

Our comment in March (click)

However, speculation is increasing over the fate of the Community Stadium project itself.

A revised planning application for the stadium was granted in March 2015. The proposal could have been “called in” by the Secretary of State or made subject to a Judicial Review.

Neither happened, so it was a surprise when changes to the layout of the stadium were placed before the Planning Committee on 8^th June 2016.  Important backers had withdrawn from the project and the Council was struggling to pre-let some of the commercial floor-space.

The changes were controversial involving as they did an enlarged multiplex cinema.

A further 10-week period, during which a Judicial Review of the scheme can be requested, ends in a few days’ time.

No statement has been issued by the Council, but in June Reel cinemas – who feared that the new multiplex would damage their business – had threatened legal action.

Any Judicial Review could add 6 months to the delivery timetable for the stadium project.  This would effectively put back a completion date to mid-2019. Whether the sports clubs can survive until that time may be a matter of speculation.

We have recorded on many occasions, since funding for a new stadium was found in 2010, that the Council should have got on with the project then rather than progressively to try to add, high risk, commercial – and social – elements.

This has produced a complex scheme which it is easy for opponents to delay.

Meanwhile the administrative costs of the project are eating away at the funds available for the development itself – producing a potential crisis for taxpayers in the City, not to say a further period of uncertainty for sports fans.