Keen to know greyhound stadium’s odds

Sirius Sport and Leisure Limited, which is owned by businessman Howard Wallace, has held planning permission for the stadium at Barbachlaw Farm, Wallyford, for over a decade.

But the only sign of any work on the stadium being carried out is the steel frame of a stand which can be seen from the A1 and was put up 12 years ago.

Planning applications for housing development on some of the land, which was initially set aside for business development by the council, have gone ahead as Sirius Sport argued that the housing was needed in order to fund the stadium.

However, the spectre of the stadium has also led to campaigns by anti-greyhound racing campaigners to stop it being built.

Last year, Sirius Sport received planning permission to build a further 94 “high-end” houses on land which was initially set aside for the stadium car park, as well as permission to build a car park on adjoining land.

The plans had originally been turned down by East Lothian Council but that decision was overturned by the Scottish Government and they were ordered to give it the go-ahead.

Concerns that none of the houses planned were affordable were raised; however, Iain McFarlane, the council’s head of planning, said at the time the reason the houses were all “high-end” was because they were designed to raise the finance for the stadium and without them the project would not be viable.

Now East Lothian Council has asked the firm to provide an update on its plans as it prepares to move forward with its Local Development Plan, which has set aside land for up to 10,000 new houses in the county in the years ahead.

A spokesperson for East Lothian Council said: “In relation to ongoing developments in the Wallyford area, the council is conscious of the need to review and ascertain what the intentions are with the stadium site and how this would fit with the future shaping of the settlement.”