Boost for football at Yorkshire resort

Proposed designs for a new ‘leisure village’, which will include a new football stadium for Scarborough Athletic FC and a 25m swimming pool, will be put before residents at a public exhibition.

The sports facilities will be developed on the town’s old Weaponness coach park.

Discount retailer Lidl will also reveal details of its planned new foodstore on part of the former football stadium site on Seamer Road.

The detailed proposals will be open for public comment on Friday and Saturday, February 6 and 7, at Falsgrave Community Resource Centre on Seamer Road.

Representatives from Scarborough Council, developers Wrenbridge Land Ltd and planning consultants, Indigo Planning, will be available to answer questions alongside officials from the football club.

Council leader Councillor Tom Fox praised residents for their patience.

“We are holding this public consultation at Falsgrave Community Resource Centre so that the consultation is conducted within easy reach of the communities that are directly affected by the proposals at Weaponness and the former football ground.

“I know that the people of Scarborough have been very patient during the earlier stages of the planning for the leisure village and football stadium and will be looking forward to seeing the latest designs for the site. I’m therefore expecting a bumper attendance at the exhibition days and lots of people wanting to take part in the consultation. This is your chance to give your opinions on the designs and help shape how the iconic facilities, which will eventually be used by the whole community, will look.”

Peter Jarman, managing director of Wrenbridge Land Limited, said: “We are very pleased to now be able to bring forward our proposals for Scarborough leisure village, which will provide a state of the art sports and leisure facility and community stadium for Scarborough. It is exciting to also be able to present the proposals from Lidl as the first of the enabling sites, which will provide us the financial resources to deliver this iconic scheme.”

A spokesperson for Lidl added: “Today we are very excited to announce plans for a new Lidl Foodstore on the site of the former Scarborough Football Stadium. The proposed store will have a sales area of 1,286 square metres and a dedicated in store bakery allowing us to stock our full range of fantastic bakery products. A free customer car park with 99 spaces is proposed and we predict that the store will create up to 30 full and part-time positions.”

Wrenbridge and Lidl will use the feedback gained from the consultation to form part of the formal planning applications for the two sites, which are due to be submitted to the council’s planning department by the end of February for consideration.

* The consultation event is open to anyone on a drop-in basis from 4pm to 8pm on the Friday and from 10am to 2.30pm on the Saturday.

A leaflet giving details of the plans and inviting attendance at the exhibition is being sent to homes in the vicinity of the two development sites.

Residents and others are invited to comment, using the council’s website, from February 4-20.