Sheffield council announced it would close and demolish the £29m Don Valley Stadium as part of council cost-cutting measures earlier this month.

The site is been earmarked for housing but former sports minister Richard Caborn has unveiled the rival fledgling plan.

The redevelopment plan envisages a new 15,000-seat rugby stadium for Sheffield Eagles and Rotherham Titans on the Don Valley Stadium site. It would also include new venues for basketball, gymnastics and snooker

Athletics would move to Woodbourn Road stadium with a £2.5m budget to upgrade  athletics facilities as an alternative to Don Valley

Proposals involve the new National Centre for Sport and exercise medicine being located at the site and a second University Technical College for Sheffield.

Caborn said: ‘This is the result of intensive work by a small group of significant organisations in the Sheffield city region to consider a future for the Don Valley Stadium.

“It is a unique scheme which has already received funding to go to the feasibility stage.”

The council has yet to get behind the scheme and presently has no plans to put cash in.