Blantyre football chairman slams decision to reject Jock Stein Centre bid
Jimmy Whelan is telling us he wanted to invest millions into the site.
The chairman of Blantyre Soccer Academy is telling Clyde 1 News the decision to reject his bid for the Jock Stein Centre in Hamilton could stop the club taking on more players.
Jimmy Whelan submitted a document to South Lanarkshire Council proposing to invest ÂŁ2 million over the next three years.
"We could have made this a thriving business."
He said: "There has been no investment at all in the football parks or the pavilion since 2009 and the premises lost half a million pounds in the three years prior to covid.
"We feel we could have made this a thriving business and charitable organisation which gives back to the community."
"This is stopping our club growing."
The club management claims it planned to build a 3G pitch, a community garden and a coronavirus memorial garden.
The board of directors is going sit down and decide what the next move will be and hasn't ruled out appealing the council's decision.
Jimmy added: "This is stopping our club growing.
"Next year we are actually considering not having a new intake of players because we can't get training or playing facilities for the kids.
"Ideally we would love to purchase our own piece of land and build football pitches on it.
"The Jock Stein is not the first place we have spoken to the council about, there are a lot of underused football pitches in the area due to cutbacks.
"If the appeal fails we may even take this to the Scottish Parliament."
Daniel Lowe, Executive Director of Housing and Technical Resources, at South Lanarkshire Council said: "The council has to balance the potential benefits and investment that could be delivered through the transfer of a property to an individual organisation against the current benefits that the facility provides to the wider community, including its regular existing users.
“In this case, the wider community has expressed a large amount of support for the facility to remain under council ownership.
“As a result of this and other factors, a decision notice was issued to the Blantyre Soccer Academy refusing their request for the community asset transfer of the Jock Stein facility in Hamilton.”
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