Bradford has submitted plans for a new home for rugby league which will be the largest permanently covered stadium in England.
The 25,000 capacity stadium, located in Odsal, will have a regional skills centre for rugby league and is expected to host other sports, such as boxing, as well as music, entertainment and cultural events. It will build Bradford’s profile as the UK City of Culture 2025, attracting more than 1.25m visitors a year.
The stadium, which will become the new home of the Bradford Bulls, will form part of a wider complex, including a training centre for men’s, women’s and wheelchair rugby league, a new complex for elite sports, a 105-bedroom hotel and five new sports pitches for rugby and football. A 592,000 sq ft solar farm will be built on site to provide renewable energy for the scheme.
Susan Hinchcliffe, leader of Bradford Council, said: “Rugby league was created to help level up the north of England by enabling working-class players to be compensated for taking time off work to play rugby.
“Rugby league is woven into the fabric of Bradford and the north of England. By building a regional skills centre and the largest permanently covered stadium in the country, we can harness the power of rugby league to level up again by creating well-paid careers and jobs for thousands of young men and women in Bradford and across Yorkshire and the North East.”
Tony Sutton, chief operating officer at the Rugby Football League, said: “Bradford has a rich history in rugby league. This world-class complex would put Britain’s sixth-largest city back at the heart of British sport.”
The new stadium, and wider complex, will be built on the current Odsal stadium site (pictured), which was erected in the 1930s to rival Wembley as the national home of rugby league. It will retain Odsal’s iconic bowl structure, but built to modern standards.
The complex is subject to a bid in the second round of the government’s Levelling-up Fund, which has two potential awards of £50m for culture-led schemes. Additional funding would come from private- and public-sector partners.
Bradford Bulls chairman, Nigel Wood OBE, said: “We are extremely impressed by and applaud the scale of the ambition for Odsal Stadium and its immediate surroundings, conceived by our civic leaders and the RFL.”
It is hoped the development will bring over a £1bn of economic benefit to the city.
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