SRU confirms car ban on back pitches to continue

THE SRU revealed yesterday that City of Edinburgh Council is spending £2 million on improving the back pitches at Murrayfield, but admitted it was now unlikely that any public car parking would be available at future international matches.

The six back pitches have been torn up and are currently being transformed in a £2m project creating new flood defences and Edinburgh's tram line.

The work, being funded by City of Edinburgh Council, will also create three new grass rugby pitches and a state-of-the-art, all-weather, artificial pitch which could host all standards of rugby matches.

Weather has delayed the project and, rather than finishing early next month, it is now expected to be completed by December, but the pitches are not due to be in full use until next May, opening with the Martin Currie Festival of Rugby being staged during the Emirates Airline Edinburgh 7s.

The SRU stated yesterday: "The bedding-in of the new pitches will mean that it is unlikely there will be any public car parking during the 2009 RBS Six Nations Championship.

"Scottish Rugby (the SRU] has announced already that there will be no public car parking during the Bank of Scotland Corporate Autumn Tests in November."

The union confirmed to The Scotsman that there would still be provision for disabled car parking at Murrayfield, but it appears that the alternative plans being explored for shifting public car parking – and the famous back-pitch atmosphere – to another area around the ground, have reached a dead end.

A spokesman insisted that finding other public parking had not yet been completely ruled out and that avenues were still being explored, but he admitted to dwindling opportunities for such facilities.

John Litster, Scottish Rugby's facilities manager, has been overseeing the project and he revealed that the old floodlights used for national squad and Edinburgh training on the back pitches may be sold to interested parties with new floodlighting columns already in place.

But he confirmed that usage of the new pitches would be restricted. The maximum for the rest of this season will be six hours per month, which will continue the squeeze on national squads, Edinburgh and Murrayfield Wanderers training and lead to a continuance of these squads travelling around Edinburgh and further afield for training, which merely underlines Scottish rugby's paucity of quality training facilities.

The flip side, he stated, was that Murrayfield would have much improved training surfaces for those teams who do get to use them. Litster confirmed: "We will have to limit usage on the grass pitches initially and, going forward, we will be looking at access to the pitches given that they are used by international, professional, age-grade, club, youth and women players.

"But I believe the development will lead to an improvement in the quality of the back pitches."

There is also a cost implication of losing around 2,000 car park spaces which were charged at £10 a head this year, but the most immediate concern for the SRU and supporters, particularly those who travel to Murrayfield from the north, west and south of Scotland, is how many will still travel to the capital for the six internationals this season.

The SRU is hoping the car ban will not be a deterrent and is encouraging supporters to "make use of alternative public transport arrangements", which include the 'Park and Ride' schemes, but there remains a fear that the loss of the back-pitch car park will result in a drop of previously loyal Test match supporters.