Death knell sounded for Meadowbank Stadium

Published on Saturday 4 August 2007 01:57

MEADOWBANK Stadium in Edinburgh is facing almost certain demolition after an independent taskforce set up to investigate its future agreed it should close.

The council-appointed panel is understood to have accepted warnings from officials that it would be a waste of money to refurbish the ageing arena, which was built for the 1970 Commonwealth Games. A leaked copy of its draft conclusions has described any attempted revamp as "short term and short-sighted".

The recommendation of the taskforce, chaired by Terry Christie, a former manager of Meadowbank Thistle football club and a headteacher at Musselburgh Grammar School, will add weight to arguments for the building of a 53 million stadium on Sighthill Park, in the west of the capital.

The draft report urges the council to look at rebuilding at Meadowbank as the "best-case scenario". But unless the council can persuade the Scottish Executive to provide tens of millions of pounds in funding, it accepts that selling the land for housing is the city's best option.

The taskforce was set up in April after protests about the council's plans to demolish Meadowbank Stadium, sell the land to property developers and build the new arena at Sighthill.

The group is made up of councillors, officials of the local authority and its arms-length firm Edinburgh Leisure, community groups and sporting organisations. Officials involved in lobbying the Executive have made clear there is no prospect of winning significant new funding.

The leaked report shows that the taskforce agrees that maintaining the status quo is "not an option" and Edinburgh must invest in national and regional sports facilities. The Executive has awarded 17 million to the council towards the proposed Sighthill stadium and the 32 million revamp of the Commonwealth Pool.

The draft document says refurbishment at Meadowbank "would be a short-term, short-sighted approach to the provision of sporting facilities and would not meet the national agenda or the council's vision for appropriate sporting facilities. Regrettably, there does not appear currently to be a viable alternative to the sale of the Meadowbank site."

Steve Cardownie, the deputy leader of City of Edinburgh Council, said the reality was the council would have to find the money. He said: "If there is no capital receipt available from the sale of land at Meadowbank and the money cannot be found from elsewhere, then the council may well have to go back to the drawing board.

"That is obviously a matter for the council to decide, but we've not even seen the findings of this working group yet, so it's too early to say any more."

A council spokesman said: "We are aware that the independent working group is at very early stages of drafting its report. We await submission of the final version this month."

An Executive spokesman said: "The Scottish government, through SportScotland, has allocated 17 million for three projects at Sighthill, Hunter's Hall and the Royal Commonwealth Pool and it is now the local authority's responsibility to bring forward detailed proposals."