MP's anger at Stadium delay

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 24th May 2007

There is still no start date agreed for the Colchester Community Stadium - and legal agreements have still to be signed by the North Essex Mental Health Trust and English Partnerships to enable work to commence.

Today an "angry and exasperated" Colchester MP Bob Russell said: "Would you want this lot to organise a party in a brewery?"

The Mental Health Trust and English Partnerships are the bodies responsible for disposing of National Health Service land and property at the former Severalls Hospital in north Colchester which, with land at Cuckoo Farm owned by Colchester Borough Council, is planned for a major development which includes the long-promised Community Stadium which will be the new home for Colchester United.

Land owned by the three is subject to joint planning and legal agreements, and all three parties have to sign legal documentation to enable sales to take place and for work on the various schemes to start.

Two months ago Mr Russell offered to convene a meeting between Colchester Borough Council and the North Essex Mental Health Trust to try to get movement with a project which had stalled, even though the Borough Council had already agreed to award a contract to a company from Scotland to build the stadium.

His offer was declined, but it produced the desired result because the Trust and the Council did meet - prompting Mr Russell to question why it had taken his public intervention to get them round the table, and why had they not done so several months before.

But now it has emerged that the Trust, and it would also appear English Partnerships, have still not signed the necessary legal agreement despite the words of assurance which emerged following that meeting.

Mr Russell said that he had received a letter from the Council's Chief Executive, Mr Adrian Pritchard, who told him that he was unable to give any details as to the date on when on the stadium will start.

Mr Pritchard told Mr Russell: "We continue to work closely with the North Essex Mental Health Trust and English Partnerships in seeking the signing of the Legal Agreement. I understand all parties are in agreement in principle and it is now in the hands of the lawyers. I have been given an assurance by both North Essex Mental Health Trust and English Partnerships that they are expecting to sign the Agreement shortly."

Over the past year several start dates for work on the stadium have been given, the most recent being on 6th May when U's fans were told by Club Chairman Mr Peter Heard at the final game of the season that work would commence in June. It was on hearing this that Mr Russell wrote to the Council to seek details, only to be told that no date could be given because the legal agreements had still not been signed.

Mr Russell said: "I think the general public is entitled to ask why it is, that three public bodies with a duty to work in the public interest, have managed to delay, delay and delay again with a project which should have been done and dusted a long time ago.

"I have today, as a result of being told when I asked the Council what was going on and hearing of the continuing delay, decided to pursue once again both the North Essex Mental Health Trust and English Partnerships for an explanation. What has happened is inexcusable. Blaming the lawyers is one thing, but surely it is the responsibility of the leaders of these bodies to instruct their lawyers to get a move on? Delays running into several months in signing legal agreements suggests to me a lack of determination and political will by those who have failed to deliver. Unless, of course, there is another motive in seeking to drag things out for as long as possible."

He added: "I am constantly asked by people, not just Colchester United supporters, why it is that the stadium is being delayed when the Visual Arts Facility has happened in a matter of a few months. I have to tell them that they must address that question to the Council.

"Members of the public are amazed when I tell them that the Council - along with the Community Stadium Shadow Board and the so-called Stakeholders Group, both of them quangos without any democratic accountability - appear to have a deliberate policy to exclude me from matters relating to the Stadium. I believe this is politically motivated by the Conservative-run Council and their cronies who run the two quangos. I have to pursue the Council to get answers and information, otherwise both I and the people of Colchester would be kept in the dark."