HEREFORD Football Club has thrown its weight behind a school's bid to get its own artificial sports pitch.

Aylestone School is the proposed location for a new 3G surface that could host football matches and training sessions until 10pm in the week.

The joint is a joint one between the Herefordshire FA and Aylestone School.

If successful, the new area would also incorporate youth pitches underneath new floodlights on the site off Broadlands Lane.

The application has clearly split opinion with more than 150 representations made to Herefordshire Council's planning team.

Martin Watson, Hereford FC's secretary, was one of those to back the bid and explained that his club had to train in Gloucestershire due to a shortage of artificial pitches found locally.

He wrote: "During the winter months, Hereford FC has seen dozens of matches postponed across its age groups due to unplayable grass pitches, and the severe limitation on the quantity of artificial grass pitches available in the county means that there is often no alternative venue available.

"Several of our age groups have spent two months without playing a match this winter due to postponements following waterlogging or freezing temperatures, meaning their participation in sport has been severely limited due purely to the limited facilities available for use."

His views were echoed by the former Hereford United player manager, Jamie Pitman.

He wrote: "Being an ex-professional footballer, I know the difficulties to make the grade and with us being a rural county we need to provide our participants with the opportunity to develop and improve in the county with improved facilities which would provide better opportunities locally.

"I would love to see extra facilities such as Aylestone developed in the county to support the development of not only football but other sports for the benefit of all."

The Hereford Civic Society and the Aylestone Conservation Area Action Group were among those to register their objection with the scheme.

And Jacqueline Scriven, who lives on the nearby Overbury Road, summed up many of their gripes in her own letter.

"The project is unsuited to a residential conservation area," she wrote to the council's planning officers.

"The light and noise pollution caused to the surrounding residents will be considerable and unacceptable.

"The present noise from the games pitch is currently at a tolerable threshold, being both sporadic and within socially acceptable hours.

"The proposed project is considerably beyond these acceptable limits by being both constant and running late into the evening."