Could football club be given stay of execution?
Council promises to review timescale for kicking Newbury FC out of ground
A LEADING West Berkshire councillor has promised to review the timing of Newbury Football Club leaving their current ground.
The club have been served notice on their ground in Faraday Road and have to be out by June 2016 so that the council, which owns the site, and its chosen developer, St Modwen, can begin to redevelop the London Road Industrial Estate (LRIE).
However, in a heated debate at the Newbury Vision conference on Monday, the council admitted that work was unlikely to start on the LRIE until 2018.
It caused a backlash from representatives of the football club, who demanded to know why they were being kicked out of the ground two years before development starts.
In response, the council’s chief executive, Nick Carter, said: “We have been having conversations with the football club for quite a while and to answer your question specifically, to facilitate the redevelopment of London Road.
“We have to move the regeneration project forward. The council has a requirement to ensure vacant possession and we have taken the view that that is the right time to do it.
“We have had extensions to the lease granted on an ad hoc basis to allow them to stay for as long as we felt appropriate. The time has come now to move London Road on and the view was taken that that date was the appropriate date to do it.
“We have had that conversation with the football club. I don’t want to open that question up again in this kind of setting.”
However, the council’s portfolio holder for planning and economic development, Alan Law (Con, Basildon) later contradicted his chief executive by promising to review the timing.
Mr Law said that the council, as landlord, had already made the decision to terminate the lease and would not be changing its mind.
He did, however, add: “The timing, I am sure in all reasonableness, is something we can negotiate on. I know of no other reason, of no hidden agenda for the timing.
“I know of no other reason for saying here is a hard-and-fast date. If there is, someone hasn’t told me. Let me make it clear what I am saying: I am committing to having a review on the timing, but not the principle.”
As part of the debate, Mr Carter was also forced to answer questions about what the council was doing to find the club alternative accommodation.
He said: “It is not as though this has come as a bolt out of the blue, we have been talking to the football club for a number of years.
“We have had conversations about an alternative facility, I am not going to go into that now.
“We’ve also been talking to Sport England about reprovision, including a proposal around a ground share.
“We have worked on that proposal and it has been put to the football club.”
Sport England confirmed that the council had contacted it in June 2014 for pre-consultation advice and that there had also been correspondence between itself and the FA.
In any application that affects sporting facilities or playing fields, Sport England is a statutory consultee in the planning process. The organisation confirmed that it would have to be consulted even if Newbury FC folded and no sport was being played at Faraday Road.
Nick Kaye, development director for St Modwen, said: “My understanding is Sport England are a consultee to any application whether the football club is playing on that pitch at the date of application or cease trading.”