Bulls fan ScramBull is confused and worried about the lease offer from Herefordshire Council:
So what’s this lease offer all about then?
Personally, it’s got me wondering whether Herefordshire Council really want a football club at Edgar Street at all.
Basically, what I’m sure most supporters want is a stable, well-run club that they can support and be proud of for many years/decades to come. I certainly do.
So, with that being the case, how does the council’s lease offer give the new tenant any chance of establishing itself properly and starting to build a new club we can all be proud of?
I’m not too concerned about the fact that the two ends of the ground are not included in the lease offer – I believe a licence granting access is quite straightforward to sort – but I do have huge concerns about the fact the proposed lease is so short.
When more detail becomes available about the lease ‘offer’ there may well be ‘guarantees’ that the lease will be extended, but right now there is no sense that is the case. What I would ask then is this; would this type of offer be acceptable to a normal commercial business that was hoping to become a new tenant at a council property?
That’s the key for me here. For a new football club to be successful and sustainable it has to be a well-run business. The council’s offer makes that incredibly difficult to achieve as the lease available appears to offer no real long-term security at all.
Several councillors even pointed this out at the Cabinet meeting last week, yet still an unreasonably short lease forms the base of the ‘offer’ released yesterday.
How can it be acceptable to ask any investor, fan or sponsor to put money – and passion - into a new club if there is no guarantee that in two and a half years time it will not be thrown out of its home?
I’m no expert on HUST’s rules and regulations, but I’m not sure its Board – as ‘trustees ‘ - would be able to recommend to their members that putting money into a business/club with only a very short lease is the right course of action anyway.
And it’s actually worse than that, the property on offer here is a place that those responsible for the business will probably have to spend a significant amount of money on to make it ‘fit for purpose’ too. On the surface, hardly deal of the century this is it?!!
To be blunt, I’m baffled by the council’s current position, I really am. All the public bluster about wanting a new football tenant seems to be contradicted by the ‘offer’ they went public with yesterday.
What’s particularly galling for me is that 12 months ago the council seemed happy to discuss a much, much longer lease with the people then running Hereford United, despite the fact that everyone knew it had become a financial basket case. How can that be right? But then I suppose the Board back then were much closer to the council.......
Many cynics have suggested they have no real interest in ensuring Edgar Street remains a football stadium and that many councillors would get rid of Edgar Street without giving it a second thought.
Is the lease ‘offer’ therefore part of a plan to achieve this? Are the council trying to look like they are doing the right thing, while actually making it nigh on impossible for anyone to make a sensible decision that the lease on offer is a good one?
I genuinely don’t know the answer to the above questions, but, if the fears of many are correct and the plan is to remove the Edgar Street stadium, the current council can kiss goodbye to any chance of winning another term in office in May’s elections.
Essentially this lease offer could finish the job started by David Keyte, which was then carried on with such malicious intent by Messrs Agombar and Lonsdale.
Herefordshire Council has it in its hands to do the right thing here. I dearly hope they realise that and sort this sorry mess out once and for all so we can all get back to supporting OUR club at Edgar Street.
Or alternatively, they could be responsible for issuing the fatal blow for football at its spiritual home in our city. It’s a simple choice.
We need to #SaveEdgarStreet, we really do.