Bristol City Council Approves City Football Club Ashton Vale Stadium

10.00.00pm GMT Sun 8th Nov 2009

Bristol City Council has approved plans by Bristol City Football Club to build a new stadium in Ashton Vale. The stadium will seat 30,000 fans, but will be expandable to 44,000 should England be chosen to host the 2018 World Cup. The Council is strongly backing the bid for Bristol to be one of the World Cup Host Cities.

In the media the stadium plan has been linked to plans to build a Tesco superstore on the existing Ashton Gate site. Tesco recently dropped out of that and now Sainsbury's have signed a deal to move their store from just up the road and expand it on Ashton Gate.

The Lib Dem administration has been very firm that they cannot influence the planning process, which is legally required to be independent. They also point out that they are required by law to get "Best Value" for residents in any deals that they do, which means it would be illegal for the Council to simply gift land to the football club.

Commenting on this, local campaigner Mike Popham said "Its great that the Stadium plans were approved. Good also that to put a Tesco superstore on Ashton Gate has been dropped. Having two big superstores in fierce competition just down the road from North Street could have proved very damaging to local retail and the local economy. The effects of moving Sainsbury's there will depend on how big the planned store is. If it is huge, it would be little different to the Tesco plan. If it is more modest there might not be any problems."

The Lib Dem administration has also made it clear that it sees the provision of a concert arena as an essential part of the deal and have been working to make it happen.