Scrum and get it… former rugby ground sale in Milton Keynes approved

Housebuilder Bellway Homes will be told to ‘scrum and get it’ after a senior Milton Keynes councillor approved the sale of a former rugby ground.

There’s a cool £3.8million price tag on the 13.12 acre site of the former Greenleys Rugby Football Club site, off Field Lane, in Greenleys.

The proceeds are set to be split 50:50 between landlord Milton Keynes Council and 999 year leaseholder The Parks Trust.

The site has already won a place in the Plan:MK development bible and is set to see 100 new homes and a state-of-the-art 3G sports pitch.

Milton Keynes Council says the site has a “chequered history”.

A report by the council’s commercialisation lead for property, Ed Palmieri, said: “The Parks Trust let the site up to July 2011 to the Milton Keynes Rugby Union Football Club which surrendered its lease with the building in a heavily dilapidated condition.”

It was then leased to Wolverton Town Sport and Social Club CIC, but Mr Palmieri says: “There ensued multiple breaches of the repair and maintenance covenant which resulted in the Parks Trust taking back possession in 2016. The site was then boarded up and following numerous arson attacks and other damage in 2016 the building was demolished for safety reasons.”

Housebuilder Bellway Homes has estimated that 6.31 acres of the site could host 100 new homes with a minimum of 87,000 sq-ft of accommodation. A planning application could be submitted within six months and would need to be approved by the council before work is started.

The sale of the homes, about 30 per cent of which would be affordable, would then help to pay £1.65million for, and build, a 3G sports pitch and 4 four-team changing room. The new sporting venue would include floodlighting and parking. There would also be room for a “local area of play.”

Once the sports facility is completed, it will be to handed to the Parks Trust or to Wolverton and Greenleys Town Council to be managed.

Milton Keynes Council’s cabinet member for resources and innovation made the delegated decision to go ahead at a meeting on Tuesday, April 9. The decision will go ahead if there are no objections within the council’s five day cooling off period.