Cardiff City to scrap training site plans

Welsh Cardiff City's plans of cohabiting a training facility with the Cardiff Blues rugby team at Hensol Castle have been demolished.

Council members from the Vale of Glamorgan delivered a setback to plans to develop a field next to the M4, near a hotel, feeling the land was too valuable to give up on a long-term lease.

Though a backup plan has been proposed, club chairman Peter Ridsdale has already had urgent talks with Cardiff County Council about a new site. They have already looked at land near where a new stadium is being built, while Ridsdale will also talk to officials at University of Wales Institute this week.

Cardiff City can train at the University of Glamorgan's playing fields in Treforest until the end of September, but Treforest is unlikely to be available after September.

"We will become nomads after the end of September unless we can come up with a solution," said Ridsdale. "Now our new stadium has gone unconditional the training ground is a big priority – we must solve this problem once and for all."

The Hensol Castle plan was to give the area top training facilities for professional football and rugby teams, but the Vale of Glamorgan council felt the land was too valuable for a 50-year lease.

There also were concerns that the land may be needed to build an access road when RAF St Athan expands to house a new GBP 14 billion defence training academy. Installing floodlights in the countryside also was listed as an issue that led to the plan's defeat.

"We felt the Hensol Castle scheme would be the ideal answer, but we have to look seriously at alternatives," Risdale said. "This is a problem which has to be solved quickly."

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.