New sports pitch delayed as council pauses funding

Councillors have delayed handing over a £705,000 grant to a football club for a new pitch until they have more details about the scheme.

Stocksbridge Park Steels FC was due to receive the grant to deliver a new artificial all-weather 3G football pitch at its Bracken Moor Lane ground.

The project is part of the £24.1m Stocksbridge Town Deals government regeneration scheme overseen by the independent Stocksbridge Towns Fund Board.

Sheffield Council administers the funds and has to approve the handover of money for projects but the grant was paused after Liberal Democrat and Reform councillors intervened.

Councillors said they did not have enough information to sign-off on the grant handover, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Councillor Mike Levery, Lib Dem group spokesman on the committee, said: "We haven't had a briefing on Stocksbridge Town Funds for a year and then all of a sudden we're being presented with projects for approval.

"In effect, we're awarding a grant to a football club and I don't know what this entity is – is it a private company with shareholders? It's certainly not a public limited company.

"Is it a charity? What are we actually awarding the grant to and is that within the legal requirements for us to award grants?"

Legal counsel David Hollis said that the grant would go to the trustees of the club.

Levery added: "I've got serious questions about the way this is going forward. This should have been delivered by the council with a tender and a properly-scoped plan for what they want to do."

He also questioned why £350,000 was being taken off High Street regeneration, which was the key aim of the overall project.

Committee chair Labour councillor Elle Dodd said the Towns Fund Board made decisions about what funding should be spent on.

She said: "It's quite an important part of democracy that if a local group is set up to make decisions, we don't try to overrule without due cause."

Green councillor Angela Argenzio said: "The decision of how the money is spent is not Sheffield Council's.

"The democratic process is that money is for that area and they decide. It would be really inappropriate and unjust to tell people, in any part of the city where they've got funding specific to them, how to spend it."

Reform UK councillor Coun Jack Byrom agreed with the Lib Dems and said he would not approve the proposal.

Stocksbridge Towns Fund Board was approached for comment. It had previously said many local football teams were forced to travel outside Stocksbridge for training sessions and matches when the existing grass pitches became unplayable in bad weather.

Councillors will look again at the funding at an extraordinary finance committee meeting on 22 June. That meeting will also discuss the acquisition of 517 Manchester Road on behalf of Stocksbridge Towns Deal Board.

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