A WOKINGHAM football club has criticised plans to increase the pitch rent prices for some of their youth teams.

Wokingham Borough Council plan to increase the rents from April 1 this year.

In the changes the cost for a junior team using an adult pitch is set to almost double.

The cost will rocket by £26.45 to £45, the same as an adult team using the same pitch.

Stephen Williams, Wokingham & Emmbrook Youth FC Chairman, said: "This will mean that our costs to provide floodlit training facilities for our teams and pitch hire for Saturday home games will increase by £6,100 per annum.

"How do Wokingham Borough Council believe that local clubs like ourselves, who try to accommodate over 350 boys and girls from U7 - U18 playing football in the local area, could find the funds for such an increase when our income comes from individual player registrations and all our managers, coaches and committee are volunteers?

"The club is not a profit-making organisation. All money is used to provide training facilities and league registrations as well as to abide by the rules and regulations dictated by the Football Association.

"Is the council against the borough providing basic facilities to its communities?

"There is a distinct lack of decent training facilities in the area for the growing youth population and it seems that Wokingham Borough Council want to penalise clubs financially who are trying to offer local children an opportunity to play regular sport.

"If the council are trying to compare to alternatives in neighbouring councils, they should take a good look at the standards they are providing. A poor astro facility, badly maintained grass pitches and a complete lack of decent facilities for an expanding population that are already over-crowded."

The price of most pitches, including full size pitches for adults and smaller children's pitches are falling.

Cllr Angus Ross, executive member for environment, said: "Our new fees and charges now reflect the size of pitch hired and the cost of maintaining it. We appreciate some junior teams that play on larger pitches will see an increase in their fees; but we feel it is only fair that charges relate to the type of pitch team’s hire.

"Junior teams were receiving a discount when playing on full size pitches; and we still had to maintain upkeep for the pitches for the benefit of all teams.

"This change has been made to align our charges with similar facilities across the borough.  We have also carried out an extensive benchmarking exercise to bring our charges in line with other local authorities.

"However, if it is shown that any Club is significantly disadvantaged as a result of these changes we will work with them to try to mitigate them."