£3,000 dispute between football club and TDC
TORRIDGE District Council is demanding Bideford Football Club pay back £3,000 the club was given for car parking on land that didn't belong to them.
The football club was paid £3,000 by Morrisons supermarket for its staff and contractors to be able to park within an area owned by the council and not leased to the club.
The council has now demanded the club pass over the money to the council or warned legal action may be taken if necessary.
The council's corporate property manager, Andrew Waite, told councillors on the community and resources committee in a private meeting that the sports ground had King George V Trust status and the council was a trustee.
He said, as such, all income received must be paid into the trust account and spent on supporting the ground.
Chairman of the club, Roy Portch, said he had not been informed by the council of the decision to return the money, nor that the meeting was taking place.
He said: "We understood the payment from Morrisons was a donation. We assumed they had been in contact with the council as we were asked if we had any objections to staff parking there while the extension was being built at the supermarket.
"Because the parking meant someone had to go and open the gate at 6.30am every morning, I was told they were making a £3,000 donation."
Mr Portch said he gave Morrisons, who are the club's main sponsor, a receipt on which he wrote "for car parking", but with hindsight he should have written "donation".
The minutes of the council meeting state members expressed concern the club had, in the past, failed to pay their rent and business rates.
But, councillors also wanted to support the club and see it prosper.
The council receives £11,301 income from the sports ground, but expenditure adds up to £24,725 — leaving the council with a £13,424 deficit.
And the council has also committed to a £25,000 refurbishment of the toilets at ground.
Meanwhile the club receives income of more than £20,000 per year for three mobile phone masts.
The council agreed a meeting should be set up with the club.
Mr Portch said he would be happy to attend a meeting and wanted to "bridge the gap" between the parties.
A spokesman for Morrisons confirmed the payment was a donation made by its contracted builders, Platinum Projects Europe.
She added the supermarket believed the club owned the land it was using when the payment was made.
2 Comments
by easypreacher, The Ho!
Friday, September 03 2010, 2:50AM
“So lets get this straight....the Council Tax I pay is going to a football club? WTF?”
by Roy Portch, Bideford AFC
Thursday, September 02 2010, 11:16PM
“I would have thought that the highly paid officers working for TDC could at least add three simple figures together and reach the sum of £10,850 which is the true amount that the club receive from the telephone companies and not "in excess of £20,000"as reported in the minutes of their meeting.
This has misled the committee members and the readers of this article.
Although TDC receive £6,650 as their share from the telephone companies they pay nothing towards the considerable cost of maintaining the floodlight pylons which is left entirely to the club.
With regard to the donation from Morrisons,I am extremely disappointed that this newspaper knew of the decisions reached by TDC before the club were even aware that a meeting had taken place.
As for TDC threatening to take legal action against the club before any dialogue between the parties has taken place,this is no more than I have come to expect after suffering four years of harassment and bullying.
The club are constantly being reminded of the terms of our licence agreement and that the Sportsground is a King George Vth playing field.
I would suggest that it is the Councillors that are determined to sell off the ground for development that need reminding of this,not the club.
Chairman BAFC.”