News archive

Hungerford Town Football Club has submitted a planning
application to demolish the spectator stand at Faraday Road.

Link to application: http://planning.westberks.gov.uk/rpp/index.asp?caseref=18/02046/DEMO

Hungerford – what exactly is happening?!?!?

As you are all aware the site is protected by the ACV – it
is of the utmost importance that as many people as possible contact the council to object.

Details of how to object to the application (reference
18/02046/DEMO) can be found here: https://info.westberks.gov.uk/representations

Here’s a check of the
populations of the towns/teams in the Vanarama league.

A quarter of them have comparable populations to Newbury.

By losing the ground we are losing the possibility and
potential benefits a well run club could bring to the town – in particular
financial benefits. Some of the clubs could bring hundreds to an away
game.

Subject: C/2018/101 Stage Two Complaint – Morgan

Dear Mr Morgan

Please find attached my
response following the review of your complaint under Stage Two of the
Council’s Corporate Complaints Procedure. I will be emailing you
separately the nine attachments referenced in the letter.

Yours sincerely

Rachel
Craggs
Principal
Policy Officer (Information Management)

Appendix 1-9

Transcript of questions tabled at recent West Berks Council Executive meeting.

(b) Question
submitted to the Portfolio Holder for Economic Development and Communications
by Councillor Lee Dillon (asked on his behalf by Councillor Alan Macro):
Question: “Why will the Council not enter into a short term lease with the
Newbury Community Football Group for use of the Faraday Road site?” The
Portfolio Holder Economic Development and Communications answered: Thank you
Councillor Dillon and Councillor Macro. As the appeal case regarding the wider
London Road Industrial Estate redevelopment has now been heard, the Council
wants to have the flexibility to commence redevelopment as quickly as possible.
This is why no long lease with any organisation is being provided for the site.
As for the group that you referred to in your question, it is a kind offer
regarding them taking the lease and managing the site. However, we believe the
Council is still best place to manage the site, given it already manages
multiple similar sites and also carries public service obligations so is best
place to make it available to as many groups as possible. We also want to be in
the position where we can make sure that we can commence the redevelopment as
quickly as possible when the time comes. However, I still want to be very
clear, the group itself and the organisations is represents are of course more
than welcome to utilise the site and that is exactly the purpose of what we are
doing here, we want to make that site available for as long as possible, right
up until the point of redevelopment, because I completely understand that no
one wants to see that site, not being available to the public, ahead of the
wider redevelopment. So we intend to make it available for as long as possible,
right up until the point when we are starting to invest in the site. The
Chairman asked: “Do you have a supplementary question arising directly out of
the answer to your original question. A supplementary should be relevant to the
original question and not introduce any new material?”

The Chairman
asked: “Do you have a supplementary question arising directly out of the answer
to your original question. A supplementary should be relevant to the original
question and not introduce any new material?” Councillor Alan Macro asked:
“There is currently a football ground there and a stadium, my understanding of
the Council’s plans is for a MUGA which I presume means that the current
facilities will be demolished. Whereas the group’s proposal is to keep it as a
football ground?” The Portfolio Holder Economic Development and Communications
answered: So in response to that, let me just be clear, there is a football
club which had the previous lease and there is a group of separate
representative communities, and it is important that we are distinct in regards
to those two and then with regard to the Council. The Council at the moment is
conducting an assessment of the site, as it has to do if it takes on any entity
that it then wants to make available to the public, so considerations with
health and safety and relevant insurance and making it generally safe for the
public to use. That is now Page 7 Page 6 of 10 what is going on, the results of
that assessment, I believe we are committed to making that available in
September and I don’t see any problem with that timeframe. That will set out
what makes sense for the site to be made available for the purposes that we
have talked about here. We will have to wait on what the result is of that
study, I am not going to be drawn on what that will result into. It will
literally be however the Council making it safe and available to as many groups
as possible.

NCFG Chair Paul Morgan asks consultants 4Global on the progress of their Playing Pitch Strategy (PPS) on behalf of WBC. Report is not yet complete…

Dear Mr Morgan

We have now received the
following e-mail from the Chief Executive of West Berkshire Council, in
response to the issues you raised regarding the football pitch.

With best wishes (for Richard Benyon MP)

Dear Richard,

Ref Mr Morgan’s
queries about the Council’s ability to use the football pitch for general
sports use and the decision making process behind that, I would comment as
follows:

1.
General sports use including
football.

From
a Planning point of view the Council are not required to consult on the
Council’s wish to make the playing field available for wider public sports
use. The pitch is not being altered in terms of size, surface and
maintenance, all of which could be Planning matters but here are not
applicable. The asset is being taken back in hand by the Council as land
owner and we are free to increase the level and type of sports use should we
wish to.

2.
Decision making process.

The
decision making process leading to where we are now started back in 2016 when
we met with Mr Morgan and others on April 18th 2016 and at that
meeting made clear the Council would not be entering into a new lease with the
football club but would consider a one year lease extension as requested by Mr
Morgan and others. In the end we agreed to a two year lease extension
which terminated in June this year. As Mr Morgan is aware that decision
making process included myself, elected Members and Council officers from Legal
Services and Property Services. Before the lease expired in June this
year the same bodies considered the best way for the Council to take back
control of the asset and have it managed for general sports access, a process
which the Council was perfectly entitled to manage internally.

Mr Morgan also
makes a general comment about the ACV status of the old football ground.
This status has the potential to trigger a mandatory process which is beyond
the Council’s control and must be followed
by the Council; there is no question of the
Council not recognising the status and following due process. The
significance of the ACV status is that should the Council dispose of the asset
in the future, any individual or group (including Newbury Community Football
Group) may put in a commercial bid to acquire the asset once the Council has
declared its intention to dispose of the site. The Council will as a
matter of course make this declaration and at that point any organisation or
individual wishing to put in a bid has six months in which to do so. As
per current legislation, the Council is required to consider all submitted bids
but is not obliged to accept any of them.

Kind regards

Nick

A like-for-like ground in Victoria Park won’t fit…

Gary Clifford (HTFC Academy Mgr) asked WBC if they could hire Faraday Road from September – the answer was an emphatic “NO”!