Cornish Pirates given green light to build new Stadium for Cornwall as council approves £3m funding request

Cornish Pirates’ hopes of building a new stadium to pave the way for their promotional push towards the Aviva Premiership received the go-ahead on Tuesday after Cornwall Council voted in favour of funding part of the development plans.

Winning the vote 69-41 with seven councillors abstaining, a number of Pirates fans in the public gallery cheered as the result was read out, concluding two-and-a-half hours of debate on the matter. Supporters of Truro City Football Club and students from Truro and Penrith College, who will share the stadium with the Pirates, were also in attendance.

Plans for the new 4,500-seat capacity Stadium for Cornwall – which will have the potential to expand to the Premiership minimum of 10,000 if necessary – can now continue, with the local council approving a plan to publicly fund £3m of the £14m needed to begin works. With the government promising to match the local council’s pledge, and the Pirates, Truro City and the college combining to fund the remaining £8m, work can begin on the Threemilestone site.

It is not just good news for the two clubs and the college either. Cornwall is currently the only country in the United Kingdom without a professional stadium, a stat that was raised as part of the argument on Tuesday afternoon. The stadium, located just outside Truro, is in the centre of the south-west county and will double up as a focal point for the community. As the proposal put, it plans to be a “centre of excellence for sport and exercise in Cornwall”.

Planning permission was first given for the stadium in 2011, but finally, a decade after the proposal was first put forward, 117 councillors went to vote on the biggest decision in the history of the two professional clubs. That seven councillors abstained and six didn’t show up for what one admitted was “one of the most important votes” that the council had ever held did not matter, the motion was passed and the money granted.

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The counter-arguments – and there were many – ranged from the process being a waste of money when things such as healthcare, transport and public facilities need urgent attention, to the Conservative government under David Cameron previously promising to fund the £6m needed themselves, only to row back on the pledge.

But those who supported the project did so with emotion and passion, with their Cornish heart on their sleeve, and regularly the same sound bite was heard: this is not for Truro, for the Cornish Pirates or for Truro City FC, this is for Cornwall. There were memories of the thousands of fans that Cornwall used to take to Twickenham for the county championship final – the Trelawny’s Army – and also an emailed letter from Nigel Melville, the Rugby Football Union’s director of professional rugby and former England captain, who said that the plan is a “significant move for the sport” and that “we know that the whole rugby community in Cornwall will get behind the initiative”.

There was also an impassioned speech from current player John Stevens, son of the late Brian ‘Stack’ Stevens who proudly represented Cornwall, Penzance and Newlyn, England and the British and Irish Lions.

But with the green light on, now comes the tricky part.

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The Pirates currently boast average attendances in the RFU Championship of under 2,000 in the 4,000-capacity Mennaye Field stadium. It’s hoped that these could rise towards the 4,000 mark in the new stadium, given its more suitable location near Truro as opposed to Penzance 25 miles deeper into Cornwall. With one match left to play this season, the Pirates sit 36 points off Premiership-bound Bristol, 18 points behind second-placed Ealing Trailfinders who harbour promotion thoughts of their own and one point off third-placed Bedford Blues. Promotion maybe the plan, but it is some way off at present.

Then there’s the threat of the Premiership being ring-fenced by the RFU and Premier Rugby Limited, the result being the end of promotion and relegation and, for however long they decide, the end of those great hopes. The prospect of a Cornish side in the Premiership, a regular Devon vs Cornwall rivalry with the Exeter Chiefs, is one that would be embraced, but it could easily be one that’s impossible to achieve if the top brass get their wish to protect the status of the current Premiership stakeholders.

That could play into Cornwall’s hands given that they have no intention of moving up to the Premiership in the next few years until they have laid the foundations to build the club. But with London Irish destined to drop back to the Championship next season, ambitious Coventry coming up and Ealing much closer to achieving that Premiership dream than their friends on the south-west, the Pirates could easily still be the fourth-best side in the Championship in five years’ time.

But all of this is hearsay given we do not know how the future will pan out. What is guaranteed is that Cornwall is getting a shiny new stadium to put itself on the professional sporting map. That can only be good for the surrounding community, and at a time when the state of the game in this country is continually being called into question, the decision should be celebrated as a step in the right direction.