Sheffield’s Don Valley Stadium, home of the recent Sainsbury’s School Games and training base of Jessica Ennis-Hill, is set to be destroyed despite a campaign to have it listed as a community asset.
The campaign, known as Save Don Valley Stadium, was launched after the city council revealed plans to demolish the site in April citing mounting maintenance costs. No date has yet been set for the demolition but the stadium will officially close on Monday 30th September.
A statement released by Sheffield City Council said “The Friends of Don Valley Stadium group ‘s application was assessed against the legislation as set out by the Government and in this instance they did not meet the criteria to warrant Don Valley Stadium being registered as an asset of community value. But what we would like to say is that this does not mean we are not wanting to look at other ways we can work with this group and other interested parties and we have offered to meet the group again to talk about what is next for the stadium.”
The campaigners ran a well-publicised social media campaign to save the stadium, which received messages of support from international athletes past and present, and many current athletes expressed sadness at the news last night, and posted messages of regret and asked what’s happened to the much-promised legacy of London 2012 on Twitter.
Don Valley has been the host of many athletics events on the UK, including the English Schools Championships in 1996, 2000, 2003 and 2009, the World Student Games in 1991, and, during an International Grand Prix match in 1993 Jan Zelezney threw a world-record 95.66m in the javelin, nearly spearing the in-field commentator in the process. The stadium was also where Peter Elliott beat Steve Cram over a mile at the McVities International meeting in the early nineties. Several music concerts have also been held there, including Rockers Def Leppard and hometown-favourites The Artic Monkeys.
The stadium is not alone in its fight for survival though, as many facilities are facing an uncertain future as city councils battle budget cuts. Currently, Mansfield Harriers can’t use their track and Cwmbran track in Wales and Carn Brea in Cornwall, a county not blessed with athletics tracks, may soon follow the Don Valley into closure. Rumours abound about other tracks throughout the country as councils face spiralling maintenance fees for their upkeep.
Sheffield council has promised that the revamped Woodbourn Road arena in the city will provide a more than fitting replacement when it is reopened. The new stadium will have a smaller capacity than the 25,000-seater Don Valley but should be an ideal venue for local and national age-group athletics events. It’s doubtful that the city will see world-class stars of track and field appear on its running track again though, as they once did regularly at the Don Valley.
