Star Date: 30th June 2009
A Salford Star Exclusive

REDS ROCKED BY FURTHER STADIUM SETBACK

Salford City Reds new state of the art stadium has received yet another huge blow as Salford City College was refused development funding by the Learning and Skills Council yesterday…

Back in January this year, after the original Salford Reds stadium development company, Redcity Developments Ltd, went bust, it was announced that the newly formed Salford City College was to be the "main catalyst in pushing forward the new City of Salford Stadium".

It had been hoped that the College would open a campus attached to the stadium which would help to finance the troubled project. Then, at the end of March, Salford Star revealed that the College had run into difficulties with funding for the expansion from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), as the government body was reassessing its capital funding.

At that time, David Tarry, CEO of Salford City Reds, said that it was just a temporary set back… "in reality they (the LSC) are re-organising monies and re-allocating their prioritised list of colleges. And the feeling is that we're doing very well. The funding is coming back on the agenda".

In April a further statement was announced on Salford Reds website which declared: `The Reds, Salford City College and stadium developer, Peel Holdings are of the opinion that the development and capital funding for Salford City College will prove to be very high on the agenda once this assessment has been finalised'.

Yesterday, the Learning and Skills Council announced that only 13 projects, out of 71 submitted, were to be `rescued' from the £300 million `emergency funding' announced in April's budget. Salford City College was not on that list.

The LSC stated that "Colleges not selected to proceed this year will have to wait for the results of further consultation between the LSC and the sector this autumn to agree a process for prioritising capital investment from 2011".

Which leaves the stated completion of Salford City Reds Stadium "at the back end of 2010" open to yet more questions.

We contacted Salford Reds' David Tarry again yesterday to ask if there was a Plan B (C,D,E?) but he didn't respond

Stop Press: 5:30pm 30th June

Today Salford City Reds held a press conference (to which we weren't invited) and John Wilkinson stated that despite the setback "The people of the City of Salford deserve a high-quality stadium along with one of the best college facilities in the country, and that is what we will give them."

Although he didn't say how...