Statement on Ashton Vale

Cllr Simon Cook, Cabinet Member for Culture, Sport and Capital Projects said:

"Bristol City Council has worked hard throughout all the matters relating to a proposed new stadium in Ashton Vale to properly carry out its full range of responsibilities.

"On the one hand, when it comes to matters of planning consent, councils are required strictly by law to act impartially, and only with regard to relevant factors set out under the law.  Similar restrictions to the way councils work apply to our duties to determine applications for Town and Village Green status.  In these duties, it will often look like we are sitting on the fence until the very moment that the relevant cross-party committee of elected members considers and decides the matter.  If we don't carry out these duties to the letter of the law, people take us to court, and run the risk of having our decisions overturned - and we waste tax payers' money in the process.

"On the other hand, as a council we also have a duty both to promote and stimulate the local economy and to consider the wider interests of our residents.  On matters like this, everyone expects the Council to take an active lead by saying clearly what outcome we want, and working hard to make it happen.

"When it comes to the stadium, we have taken these competing duties seriously.  We have proved the clear separation in these distinct tasks by having the first set of decisions taken by cross party groups of back bench councillors, with decisions taken on the second duty by our elected Leader and Cabinet.

"Now that the first set of considerations has been dealt with properly - even though some are still being challenged through the courts - in relation to the local economy, as a Council we are now stating our position loudly and clearly.

"We want a stadium at Ashton Vale.  It will be good for the city, and bring with it much needed jobs.

"We accept that local residents have natural concerns, such as the noise and disruption that will follow from having a stadium built nearby, and we want to do what we can to address those concerns.  A whole range of solid, physical measures is possible.

"The Council has written this week to the solicitors acting for the one local resident who is taking us to Court to dispute the decision we took that would allow a stadium to be built on the northern part of the Ashton Vale site [ i.e. that part that has not been registered as a Town and Village Green].  The judge who first considered that single resident's application to the court, urged all parties to compromise.  We are showing leadership by publicly taking that first step towards a compromise, so that a stadium can be built, but whilst local residents' concerns can still be addressed.

"If this one local person who is taking us to court - or the Parish Council spending their taxpayers’ money on legal fees - wants to stop a process costing huge amounts of tax payers' money and instead discuss a compromise that might allow for a stadium, but also for additional safeguards for local residents, we are ready to look at whatever he/she wants to come back and ask for, or to sit down and talk it through.  The choice is theirs.

"We want all parties involved - whether this one local resident, or their neighbours or the local Parish Council - or the football club and the landowner - to all equally accept that a lengthy and costly legal process is divisive to the community and bad for the city.

"We have tried independent mediation previously - we paid for those different parties to sit down with professional arbitrators to see if they could reach a compromise, but they failed.

"Now the judge has urged compromise, and the council has joined this call, we urge all parties to find a way forward through compromise.

"The ball is squarely in the court of the one anonymous local resident named on the court papers by three randomly chosen initials, and also the Parish Council funding legal action.  We hope that they will follow our lead and accept the invitation to end this battle with an honourable compromise."