Floodlights plan for rugby club
A rugby club could add floodlights and extra pitch-side storage space at its grounds, if plans are approved.
Newport Salop Rugby Union Football Club has applied to add the facilities at the club’s Old Showground home.
The club, which is in its 150th anniversary year, hopes to move its third-team pitch a few metres south away from an embankment to allow the 46ft lighting poles to be installed and add a repurposed shipping container between the third and second-team pitches.
Newport Town Council and Chetwynd Parish Council will be consulted about the plans along with residents of neighbouring street Fallow Deer Lawn, and Telford & Wrekin Council will make its decision at a later date.
The first team pitch is located directly opposite the two-hectare club site’s entrance, at the end of a lane accessed from Forton Road, Newport. The second- and third-team pitches are to the left of it.
Planning documents submitted to the borough council’s planning department says the 40-foot metal container would be used for “storage and provision of drinks and snacks”.
Plans show the lights, each with an output of 1,100 watts from 256 LEDs, would be placed on six 14-metre poles at the corners and sides of the third-team pitch. Blueprints submitted by Victoria Biggin, of Telford-based VB Architecture on behalf of Newport RUFC, say “manufacturers’ details and calculations” mean the the pitch would first have be “pulled away” from the embankment.
