Sports hub as part of garden village set to move forward

A sports hub, which would likely serve as a new home for Truro City FC, as part of a wider garden village masterplan, looks set to be approved.Cornwall Council has submitted an application for the Truro Sports Hub on land at West Langarth, which will include a main pitch for football with seating and circulation spaces.Proposals also include a community pitch with seating and circulation spaces, parking spots, footpath and potential for a community building and clubhouse with changing facilities.The main pitch which would likely serve Truro City Football Club, has a capacity for 3,000 people with potential capacity for 4,000. There is an aspiration that this pitch can be adapted for other sports, such as rugby, in the future.Also lined up are temporary buildings to provide the necessary initial infrastructure to secure Football Association (FA) certification of the ground. Both pitches would be floodlit.The proposed two new pitches would occupy the site where the Stadium for Cornwall was intended. In June 2022, Cornwall Council announced that they were withdrawing support for Stadium for Cornwall from the “Levelling Up” programme.A report for Cornwall Council’s strategic planning committee on 15 February said the proposals in open space terms are a “much better” offering, delivering outdoor sports space to meet the existing demand within the local area and for the planned growth in population in Truro & Threemilestone, including that at the 3,550-home Langarth Garden Village.The report added that Truro City FC needed to nominate its home ground for the 2024/25 season by the end of March, meaning there is an “urgency” in securing planning permission and enabling the pitch to be laid and temporary buildings and structures required to be moved on to the site. It follows the loss of their former Treyew Road site, with the club currently ground sharing at Plymouth Parkway for the 2023/24 season.Approval has been recommended, subject to conditions.