RFL tables plans for skills and social mobility hub in Manchester
Located close to Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium, the facility would use rugby league to give adults and children a route back into education.
The Rugby Football League, the sport’s governing body in England, wants to create the nation’s first hub for the development of skills and social mobility purely through sport, according to a planning statement by Deloitte Real Estate.
The Our League Life National Centre would be located on a 3.3-acre site off Bell Crescent in Beswick, East Manchester. The plot, on the edge of the Grey Mare Lane estate, is currently occupied by a clutch of vacant retail units that are to be demolished.
Under plans lodged with Manchester City Council, the RFL would redevelop the site, creating a 900-capacity stand, classrooms and seminar rooms, changing facilities and a media room.
The RFL will use the facility to offer rugby-based education courses in sports management, coaching, leadership, business administration, nutrition and physiology, among others.
In addition, the complex could also be used as a training facility for the RFL’s affiliated elite teams.
The RFL plans to make the most of the surrounding facilities at the Etihad Campus, using the Manchester Institute of Health and Performance as part of the training, rehabilitation and development of the national squads.
Holmes Miller is the architect for the project.
Any movement on this?
By Gilly