PLANS to carry out a fresh review of potential sites for a new football stadium in Basingstoke have been approved by the borough council’s Cabinet.

Members of Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council’s decision-making body agreed on Tuesday evening to carry out the review and will announce a new shortlist of sites in the autumn.

Last month, the borough council told Basingstoke Town Football Club it couldn’t support its plans to build a new stadium on the council-owned land at Old Common Road until the autumn, because the consultation could be “vulnerable to legal challenge”.

It followed a ruling on a test case in the Supreme Court, where another local authority’s consultation exercise was declared unlawful as it did not consider alternatives.

The borough council feared it could have faced a similar legal challenge, because other alternative sites considered for the club were not included in its consultation.

The club wants to build a new £10million 5,124-capacity stadium at the Old Common, in Eastrop, but needs the council to agree to a land transfer.

At the meeting on Tuesday, Councillor John Izett, Cabinet member for property, finance and commissioning, said: “We have got to a point where there was a public consultation on the Old Common land site and then it became apparent that the Supreme Court had made a decision in a completely unrelated topic but one that had potential implications in relation to the way we held the consultation back in autumn last year.”

Frazer Reavell, of the Basingstoke Heritage Society, urged the Cabinet to recognise a decision made by the council’s land and property sub-committee in February 1979, saying that any land left following the construction of the Hilton Hotel should be left undeveloped.

Eastrop councillor Stuart Parker, who has campaigned against the plans to build the stadium at the Old Common, told the meeting: “I welcome this report with considerable relief and hope that we are indeed now approaching this matter in the right manner.”

David Knight, secretary at Basingstoke Town, said: “We will continue to make ourselves available for any meetings to do what we think is right for the town.”

Related Links