Luton Borough Council’s decision to refuse the Hatters a lease for academy dome is labelled 'illogical' by Liberal Democrats

Liberal Democrat councillors have heavily criticised the decision by Luton Borough Council to refuse Luton Town a lease to build a dome for their academy at a site on Cutenhoe Road.

Back in October, the council initially passed Town’s application for the facility which is essential to the club moving from Category 3 to Category 2 status, allowing them to play in the Premier League’s U23 development games programme.

However they then rejected the decision at a meeting of the Executive on Monday night, although no formal reason has been given yet.

Liberal Democrat leader of the opposition on the Council, David Franks said in a statement: “The Council decision to refuse to allow Luton Town Football Club to lease the Cutenhoe Road playing fields is illogical and makes no sense educationally or financially.

"The club has offered to allow free use of the sports fields by the local schools, to pay for the maintenance of the pitches and to pay a commercial rent.

“Where’s the logic in saying no?

“At a time when Luton Council is covering open green spaces with concrete all over the town here’s an opportunity to give the football club the chance to improve their youth academy facilities, offer the schools the use of the playing fields with no maintenance costs and make a few bob for the hard pressed Council finances.

“How can you say no to that?

“Certainly, the Council needs to come up with a really good explanation of what they are doing and why.”

The Hatters had also vowed to support Luton Borough Council’s Climate Change Action Plan and plant almost 1,500 trees and shrubs at the site where their new sports dome was to be built.

Speaking recently, Michael Moran, Chief Operations Officer of 2020 Developments had spoken of just how they planned to help the area if they received a green light, saying: “Within that planting programme we can also encourage a positive new environmental initiative with the local schools to raise awareness and learning.

"There will also be an opportunity to look at what can be done to improve the bio-diversity of the site.

“This plan is of course in addition to our primary objective, which is to invest approximately £1m into the site and bring it back into use for the benefit of our Academy children and local schools.”

Meanwhile, chief executive Gary Sweet had also previously warned that should the club have its application turned down, they could be forced to relocate their training facilities elsewhere, adding: "Should we be unsuccessful in securing the lease at Cutenhoe Road, for the first time in our tenure, Luton Town and Luton will be divided.

"Ultimately, because we will be unable to build the requisite facilities at our training facility, we will be faced with the ultimatum, that we either limit the ambitions of our Academy (along with the entwined ambitions of our Community Trust) or we identify a new location for our club's training facilities out of town, which would be a crying shame."