A new stadium at Meadowbank has been in the council’s sights for some time, and now they are getting ever closer to the finish line.
Next week councillors will be asked to commit a further £700,000 to the next step : a final report setting out the funding needed. This will allow the council to go out to tender and fix the exact costs.
A cross-party working group, set up to oversee what the council will do with the sports facility built in 1970, is now asking the council for the sum to do the final analysis and work out exactly how much the new design will cost.
When the council have crunched the numbers, they hope that SportScotland will promise between £5-7 million, but the final report is needed before they will agree. The good news is that the cost of the new stadium has meantime reduced to £41.1m
As part of this development the council will release just under 2 hectares for housing including affordable homes and a student housing development, but the council will also have to borrow capital to fund the project.
At the moment the sports facility is deteriorating all the time, and even in this state is costing the council up to £300,000 a year.
Council Leader Andrew Burns said: “This report sets out quite clearly the funding required to turn one of our flagship facilities, which everyone agrees is at the end of its useful life, into a sports venue fit for the 21st century.
“While it is a significant investment for the Council, creating a detailed design would give us greater clarity about how much money we need to invest. Not only would we see a new Meadowbank but more homes would be built to meet the city’s housing needs.
“Obviously there is still a long way to go with a project of this scale if the funding is agreed but I want to assure everyone that the Council is determined to realise our dream of redeveloping Meadowbank.”
Councillor Richard Lewis, Culture and Sport Convener, said: “Transforming Meadowbank into a brand new sports complex would provide a modern, fully accessible high quality sports centre for sports clubs and local communities.
“The new venue will bring health and wellbeing benefits across the city by supporting even more people to become and stay active.”
A new Meadowbank would include:
- An outdoor athletics track with seating for 500
- An indoor 60m six lane athletics track with jumps area
- An outdoor throws area
- A 3G synthetic sports pitch or grass pitch in the centre of the outdoor athletics track for football, rugby and other pitch sports
- An additional outdoor 3G synthetic sports pitch
- An eight badminton court sports hall with 500 permanent seats plus bleachers (the same size as the current Meadowbank Hall 1)
- A four badminton court sports hall with 500 permanent seats (the same size as the current Meadowbank Hall 2)
- A gymnastics hall, gym, studios, changing facilities, café, meeting rooms.
If the funding shortfall is addressed then demolition could begin in late autumn 2017 with a new Meadowbank opening in summer 2019.
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