Football pitches and pavilion plan scrapped

The decision will have to be confirmed in a vote of the full council and is also subject to approval from the new government

Plans to build new football facilities on a park have been scrapped by a city council.

The £9.7m revamp of Ashton Park in Preston included an all-weather 3G pitch, six grass pitches and a two-storey sports pavilion installed on the Pedders Lane green space.

A group of residents opposed to the proposals had said they would launch a legal challenge against the authority if it pressed ahead with the development.

The city council had remained committed to the scheme, which was part of a package of projects the authority had secured cash from the levelling up fund for, until it was presented with a report detailing the financial challenge of the proposal.

'Spiralling costs'

A confidential document was presented at the meeting of the ruling Labour group on Tuesday, which has been seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).

It described projects - including a planned upgrade to Moor Park and the creation of new segregated cycle paths across the city - as being "unaffordable as currently designed".

The paper revealed those plans, and improvements to Waverley Park, were currently being "value engineered" in an attempt to keep them within budget.

While work on the highest-profile of Preston’s levelling up fund projects - the replacement of the crumbling Old Tram Bridge between Avenham Park and Penwortham - is already under way, the LDRS understands other schemes were subject to being scaled back or even dropped altogether as a result of the spiralling costs.

Against that backdrop, Labour members were given a choice about whether to proceed with the blueprint for Ashton Park or remove it from the list of levelling up developments and plough the money saved into the over-budget parts of the programme.

A majority voted to scrap the divisive vision for the park site.

More modest plans for Ashton Park will now be pursued, if alternative sources of funding can be found.

The decision will have to be confirmed in a vote of the full council next month and is also subject to approval from the new government.

City council leader Matthew Brown told the LDRS scrapping the project would enable the redistribution of funds to the other levelling up projects "that are of substantial benefit to the people of Preston".

He said the authority had "responded to local concerns" about the development but added it "remained committed" to enhancing football and sporting facilities.

More than 2,200 people had signed a petition opposing the development and 80% of more than 600 respondents to a public consultation into the idea were against it.

However, the scheme was championed by local football teams which said they were in desperate need of more facilities on which to play and train.