SPECTATORS at a schoolboy football match watched in horror as joyriders in a stolen car staged a high speed pitch invasion.

Louts in a red Ford Escort drove straight through Cofton Park in Rednal as youngsters were playing a Sunday cup-tie, demolishing goalposts and crashing into the dressing rooms. Parents and officials chased the car, but it drove off at speed and was later recovered by police smashed up in a nearby street.

PLANNERS at Bromsgrove Council decided to refuse permission for a church alteration scheme. Arguments had raged at planning meetings since July over an application from Bromsgrove’s Baptist Church to raise its roof as part of a rebuilding scheme. Originally the roof was to be raised by six feet, which outraged nearby residents and the developers were asked to modify their plans, but the planning committee had now decided to reject the plan altogether on over-development grounds.

BROMSGROVE’S planning chief faced tough questioning from sports council members over the town’s new £300,000 sports hall. District planning and technical services officer David Hunt answered criticisms that the hall, due to be built at the back of the Dolphin Centre, would be a waste of money. The money had come from the sale of land in Catshill to Strakis Hotels and a £50,000 grant from the West Midlands Regional Sports Council. Construction work was expected to start in the winter.