MULTI-MILLION pound plans to build a state-of-the-art sports complex on the outskirts of York look set to be thrown out - leaving a popular sports club homeless.

Hundreds of sportsmen and women from York face the prospect of permanently losing their facilities after city council planning chiefs recommended that proposals for the £7 million sports complex should be turned down.

The Civil Service Sports Club (CSSC) had teamed up with Malton-based Harrison Developments to table the ambitious scheme for land behind the Ikon Diva nightclub, Clifton Moor.

The CSSC's former base, in Boroughbridge Road, closed in April for financial reasons.

CSSC members and leaders had hoped the new facility would be ready nine months after a planning application was approved.

More than two years had been spent seeking a suitable alternative site to Boroughbridge Road.

Tony Tate, CSSC area secretary, said: "I can't understand the council objecting. This development is one of the few in recent years that has come to York, providing outdoor facilities, and it is a facility for the people of York.

"I hope there will be an appeal, we don't want York to lose this facility."

If the application is thrown out, Mr Tate said the CSSC would look to subsidise its members' sporting activity at various York venues through membership subs.

Planning chiefs have given four reasons for the refusal, the main one being that the site lies within the green belt.

"The reasons for the development... are not considered to comprise 'very special circumstances' sufficient to justify dispensing with the presumption against development in the green belt," development control officer Patrick Sutor said in a report.

Other reasons for refusal include the complex's effect on views of the Minster and that "insufficient information" has been provided about public transport links.

A Harrison spokeswoman said any decision on an appeal if the application was refused would be down to the CSSC.

She said: "The site is low-grade agricultural land within a developed area and inside the ring road. The proposed development would provide much-needed sporting benefit to the York community."

The application will be debated by the city council's planning committee on October 23, from 4.30pm.

Updated: 14:21 Thursday, October 16, 2003