UWE won't rescue Bristol Rovers' stadium dreams if club fails to sell Memorial Ground
The University of the West of England will not ride to the rescue of Bristol Rovers' stadium dreams if the club fails to sell the Memorial Ground.
The club plans to sell the old stadium to Sainsbury's but some, including local MPs, have voiced concerns the supermarket may pull out.
Fans might be hoping that even if that should happen, the university would still build the stadium, which is to include some teaching facilities.
But UWE Vice Chancellor Steve West, pictured, has dashed such hopes.
He told the Bristol Post the club was paying for the new stadium, not the university, and buying the land from UWE.
"If Bristol Rovers can't sell the Memorial Ground to Sainsbury's and can't find any other buyer then clearly they don't have the funding to be able to develop the stadium," he said.
"For UWE that would mean we then have however many acres of land to do something else with. It's as simple as that. Would I rather build a stadium than a faculty of business and law? Absolutely not. Our core business is education.
"We are clear. The sale of the old stadium pays for the new stadium and buys the land.
"We would be building the car park because we need the car park, which would happen to the serve the stadium when we are not using it."
But Mr West stressed he still expected the project to go ahead.
He said: "As far as I am aware the stadium is still scheduled to go ahead. Yes there are some delays but we are still expecting the stadium to be built."
The university is investing heavily in its own facilities, with plans for a new £50 million Business School on the Frenchay campus near the proposed stadium. Work is already under way on a new students' union.
Planning permission for the 21,000-seat UWE Stadium on land the university bought from Hewlett Packard was granted in July 2012. Since then the club has been relegated to the football conference, but remains committed to the plan.
The proposed Sainsbury's on the Memorial Ground site was given permission six months later, although legal challenges followed, delaying the project.
The city's four MPs recently wrote to Sainsbury's outgoing boss Justin King asking for reassurance its plans would go ahead after the retailer, which has been hit by a fall in profits, shelved plans for some new stores.
He wrote back reiterating the firm's commitment to the city, blaming "legal challenges" for the delay... but stopping short of a direct promise on this store.
