“It’s not what we had hoped for and is ‘second best,’ ” say negotiators on behalf of Kirkheaton Youth Football Club. (KYFC)
The club want to lease the field directly opposite their existing pitches on Bankfield Lane. The reason for this is that the club is a victim of its own success, as it now has 177 young players and is struggling to find the room to accommodate all its 18 teams. The present pitches are suffering from over use and may become unplayable. As a consequence, the club are looking for more land to alleviate the problem and to provide much needed additional training space.
They were hoping that the Diocese of Leeds* which owns the field would be willing to lease it to the club to allow for new pitches, parking etc. Unfortunately the Diocese has refused to lease out all the field but has offered approximately a third of it at ‘a peppercorn rent.’ The club would be able to squeeze one new pitch in this area, whose use is limited as it is crossed by a public footpath and then slopes away down the hill side. The club is now negotiating for an additional 4 metre strip of land to be added to the Diocese’s existing offer which will enable them to construct a walkway from their existing fields to the new site to allow youngsters essential safer access to the proposed new pitch.

The land in yellow plus the striped land adjacent to it is the glebe land. The striped area is the land on offer to the club by the Diocese. The strip of land wanted by the club for the a walkway is shown on the yellow part

The original proposal ie the whole of the glebe land, is incorporated in the draft Neighbourhood Plan for Kirkheaton
Section CP4 page 23
‘To meet the proven need for an additional football pitch and associated infrastructure, a site on Bankfield Lane is indicated in section 4 of this Plan – this site is adjacent to the existing football, cricket and other recreation facilities in the village’

The club recently celebrated its 30th birthday (2018) and is also in the process of applying to build a purpose built clubhouse on its own land, to replace the portacabins in use at the moment.

*The land is what is known as ‘glèbe land’, which was traditionally owned by the local church. Ownership has now passed to the Diocese of Leeds who have the final say on how it is used.