Two New Stadiums - Sandy Park and Westpoint

Exeter Chiefs, the owners of the old County Ground in St Thomas, sold off their ground to Bellway, the developer. They created a problem in order to make a lot of money. They didn't give a damn about their tenants, the speedway club, Exeter Falcons.

Exeter rugby club would like to remain withint the boundaries of Exeter City council and have therefore secured a site for their 'new stadium' at Sandy Park, right next to the M5 at Sandy Gate. Exeter speedway are now homeless and desperate to build a track at the Westpoint showgrounds, on Sidmouth Road. However, the two may have problems.

The proposed rugby stadium is a pathetic, mickey mouse little effort, a tiny, paltry stadium of only 8,000 capacity, all hemmed in at what I would describe as the A379/M5 armpit, near the giant Sandy Gate roundabout. The 'stadium' will have just one grandstand, probably housing just 2,000 spectators; the rest will stand on old-fashioned terraces, none more than ten steps deep. The odd rugby ball may even land up on the M5 below, causing a massive pile-up.

Rugby is a quiet sport. Exeter Chiefs will never get more than a 5,000 attendance, and practice days will make no noise at all beyond a few loud-mouthed, boisterous rugby morons shouting the odd obscenity (when they're not grabbing each other's private parts in the scrum and drinking each other's piss down the pub afterwards. Are rugby players gay?). Speedway is a very noisy sport, with practice sessions making no less noise than match-day events. What is the solution?

Simple! The solution is for the speedway to take the Sandy Park site where they will race away right next to the real thing, another race-track, the M5 motorway! There will be absolutely no noise problem at all for any neighbours since Sandy Park is right beneath a motorway and is noisy day and night. The terrible din of speedway/motorcycle engines will make no difference when accompanied by the sound of hundreds of vehicles passing every minute above.

However, the rugby club, in their so-called '£50 million development' need to make some money and stay in the limits of Exeter City council, which is, in fact, the M5 motorway. Hence, the other side of the M5 - Westpoint - is actually in East Devon District Council. But Westpoint is also in open country side and right next door to a village - Clyst St Mary - and has lots of neighbours who don't like the sound of engines revving and late night practice sessions. (Who does?). There is no enormous M5 embankment to block off the noise and keep it hidden away in the A379/M5 armpit.

Sandy Park has been marketed as a £50 million scheme. Really, the whole scheme is a £2 million rugby stadium combined with a £20 million tennis/David Lloyd Centre (for the wealthy, £100 a month/corporate bunch) and £28 million of houses, to be built by Bellway on the old County Ground. Typical. Where is the ambition? Where is the vision? What will they name it? The M5 Stadium? The M5/A379 Armpit Stadium? It is a joke!

If the city and county planners had any intelligence at all - whatsoever! - they would place the Exeter Falcons speedway stadium by the M5 (it is a noisy motorway, after all!) where there would be no complaints whatsoever over noisy speedway. Then the rugby club could go to Westpoint instead. How's that for a solution? Either way, one of the two clubs must leave the city; since the rugby club initiated the whole scheme, let them leave the city and head off to Westpoint and East Devon.


Exeter Chiefs Rugby Club and the Sandy Park, mickey mouse development:

http://www.exeterchiefs.com/?Page=32

This page has an aerial photo of the proposed stadium development, showing the pitch/stadium itself totally hemmed in at the corner of the M5 and the A379. Pathetic!