CONTROVERSIAL plans to floodlight Durham County Cricket Club’s Chester-le-Street ground could win planning permission next week.

Durham County Council’s north area planning committee will be recommended next Thursday, April 30, to approve the £1.3m scheme.

The club wants to put up six 55-metre masts at the Emirates Durham ICG at Chester-le-Street’s Riverside Park so that it can stage up to 20 evening matches a season.

The club, which first staged an Ashes game in 2013, hopes to be able to attract more international games to the 17,000-capacity stadium and says that lighting will help boost attendances generally if play can continue into the evening.

It says it will also benefit the county’s economy.

The stadium is the only one of ten Category A grounds that does not have permanent floodlighting.

But 109 letters of objection have been sent to the council from local people.

The Riverside and the Holmlands residents associations have raised objections, as have the trustees of the estate that includes the historic Lumley Castle, a Grade I listed building, which forms a scenic background to TV coverage of matches.

They say views of the 14th Century castle, which is now a hotel, will be spoiled if the plan goes ahead.

Historic England, formerly English Heritage, is also concerned about the development’s impact on views of the castle but is not raising a formal objection.

Residents of homes on the estate next to the ground are worried about the impact they could suffer such as light pollution and the noise of spectators leaving the ground later than they do now.

The Chester-le-Street and District Business Association is backing the scheme, saying that floodlighting could help bring trade to the area.

Principal planning officer Fiona Clarke says in a report to councillors that the scheme “will have an adverse impact on the historic environment, the natural environment and residential amenity”.

These would normally be sufficient to reject the application.

But she adds that the adverse impacts “need to be balanced against the wider public benefits which will be derived from the proposal”.

The stadium was built after the club attained First Class status in December 1991.

The club faced objections from residents opposed to the loss of the open recreation land that was eventually built on.

The ground is also a venue for concerts, the latest planned being a performance by Madness in September.