HOUSES will not be built on the site of Adams Park stadium in High Wycombe, a council boss has vowed.

Councillor Lesley Clarke said the land would be used for employment only if the Sands home of Wycombe Wanderers and London Wasps moves.

The clubs would need permission from Wycombe District Council for any development.

Cllr Clarke said: “It has been asked several times and even Wasps and Wanderers have asked ‘will we be able to put housing on here?’ and the answer is a resounding no.”

The stadium is at the corner of an industrial estate. Bosses say this causes congestion on match days and ‘health and safety’ concerns over access for emergency services.

The council says ‘there is no preferred site at this stage’ and named only two sites, Wycombe Air Park and Abbey Barn South, by Wycombe Summit ski facility.

More will be considered, chiefs say – but could not say how many.

The council last year ordered a feasibility study to investigate ‘co-locating a stadium and residential development at Wycombe Air Park’. Feasibility costs were about £80,000 last year.

In a public ‘frequently asked questions’ document (see link, bottom of story) the council said the new site could be used for ‘housing or commercial development’.

It says the chosen site may only be allowed for housing or business development under planning laws if a stadium is also built on it, as this is a community facility.

The authority is taking the air park’s operators, Airways Aero Associations Ltd, to court to try and increase the rent more than tenfold, a move AAA warns could put it out of action at the site.

Asked if the council would be happy to share the site with the WDC-owned air park, Councillor Roger Colomb said ‘we certainly aren’t saying we want the air park to go’.

The council is trying to ‘maximise’ it assets, he said. Cllr Clarke added: “It is nothing to do with what we are trying to do today.”

At an interview with The Bucks Free Press the councils and clubs said they did not known whether a mooted hotel would go with the development, how long what they called a ‘long lease’ for Wasps would be, the cost of the scheme and how precisely it would be financed.

Steve Hayes, who owns the debt-hit clubs, defended the use of council cash when asked by the Free Press. Some have argued WDC should not be spending public cash to benefit a private business.

Mr Hayes said: “When you talk about a private enterprise, it is a community enterprise, it is looking after people in this town and surrounding areas.”

There ‘a lot more we can do’ for deprived schools and charities through community programmes, he said.

“It is not just about making money because, strangely enough, we don’t make money.”

The clubs have acknowledged, however, that the plan would boost profits.

Wasps chairman Mark Rigby was ‘also about building the clubs as more successful businesses’ with extra leisure and entertainment facilities.

He said: “It is a different commercial marketplace to how it was when Adams Park was built and to compete commercially at the top level we need to invest.”

The plan would ‘significantly enhance’ its conference and events business, he said.

Cllr Clarke said: “If we can do more for our community, that really is one of the council’s jobs, then I think we have to go down that feasibility route.”

What do you think? Leave your comments below. Click the links below for our stories on the plan.