Supporters of a proposed artificial football pitch at a secondary school are hoping that a new planning application with changed weekday opening hours will be successful.

Roundwood Park School in Harpenden has submitted a revised application to St Albans council for a 3G pitch and floodlighting after an earlier bid was turned down by councillors concerned primarily about the opening hours.

The school is now proposing to bring forward the closing time from 10pm to 9.30pm on weekdays with Harpenden Colts using the whole of the weekday evening sessions and no commercial letting. The facility would also be closed on bank holidays.

The weekday opening hours was the main issue when the previous scheme was turned down in June. with some councillors taking the view that 10pm was too late for it to close and making a case for protecting the peace and quiet for neighbours.

Roundwood deputy headteacher, Tony Smith, said this week that while it might not look like much of a change, Harpenden Colts had agreed to take most of the available time during the week for their training and there would no longer be a commercial hour after 9pm as had previously been proposed.

He went on: “The message from us is that we respect the views of councillors who represent the views of their constituents and we have tried to meet their expectations.

“Everything was approved except for the opening times and we feel we can meet the expectations of the many people who have expressed support for this [application] this time around.”

The 850-strong Harpenden Colts are desperately in need of a 3G pitch because of the number of times training sessions and matches have had to be cancelled because of bad winter weather.