Plans to create new facilities for a Stone football club have moved forward after Alleyne’s Academy was given the green light to sub-let its former swimming pool site.
Alleyne’s Sports Centre previously provided public swimming space in the town, before a new pool opened at Stone Leisure Centre in 2019.
The old pool building currently remains in place at the Oulton Road school. Earlier this year the academy submitted proposals to Stafford Borough Council for redevelopment of the site to provide new facilities for Stone Old Alleynians.
A decision has not yet been made on the planning application, which proposes a modern clubhouse with social refreshment areas for club activities and the community. Stafford Borough Council has allocated £430,000 towards redevelopment of the site however.
Staffordshire County Council leases the land at Oulton Road to the academy, but it previously did not allow sub-letting. On Wednesday, 20th August, the county council’s Property Sub-Committee agreed for the existing academy lease to be amended to allow the sub-letting of the former wet changing areas to Stone Old Alleynians Football Club.
Councillor Chris Large, cabinet member for finance and resources, and council leader Ian Cooper told the meeting Stone councillor Jill Hood was in support of the proposal.
In a letter read out at the meeting she said:
“This development is urgently needed and would be a tremendous asset to the community. The initiative represents a crucial opportunity to enhance community engagement and promote mental health and wellbeing and physicality.”
Council officer Ian Turner said:
“Normally we do not allow sub-letting of school land under the academy lease because they are only leased under relatively tight rules, just for the operation of the school. Alleyne’s is a slightly different situation – it had a joint-use leisure centre on it, so the borough council was part of the use of the leisure centre and the old swimming pool.
“In Stone the borough council invested significantly in leisure facilities in the town, so Alleyne’s have got these old facilities that are very expensive and not typical of all high schools. They’ve come to the position that they are unaffordable to run.
“The borough council were putting more money in in terms of refurbishment, but it’s not financially viable for them. They need to look at this site now and say what they can do with it.
“It has the benefit that it’s a split site, so you have the sports facilities on one side of the road and the operational side of the school on the other side. What the school want to do is demolish the swimming pools because they can’t afford to run them – nowadays there is no curriculum requirement for a high school to provide swimming in any case.
“They’re looking at how they can make a sustainable use of that area, so they want to take the contribution of the borough council, contributions from the FA and they want to allow part of the site to be redeveloped for Stone Old Alleynians Football Club to use. There’s some community benefit there in terms of the site for the club.
“We’re quite confident we won’t need it for school expansions within the next 11 years, so let the school undertake their proposals. To do that we just need to change the lease to allow sub-letting.”
