Stadium relocation “not viable”
HUGH SULLIVAN
On Monday (6 June) the cabinet of Hastings Borough Council – newly reappointed as per our narrative on page 1 – will review the report of Chief Executive Jane Hartnell concerning the stadium relocation proposed by Hastings United football club.
The report is in response to the motion passed by the full council in December last year instructing Ms Hartnell to prepare one “at the earliest opportunity” setting out whether the relocation scheme “is viable to recommend to Council” and also “what alternative provision is available” to allow the club to remain in Hastings.
Its contents were disclosed last week on the council’s website amongst other documents circulated in advance of the cabinet meeting. It concludes that the relocation scheme “was and is not viable to be recommended to [full] council”.
The report gives a historical account of the negotiations between the council and the club which culminated in draft Heads of Terms being drawn up by the council’s lawyers in July 2021 “to facilitate [the club] obtaining funding to support its scheme and secure an £8m bond to protect taxpayers’ interests”.
After that date the club proceeded with its twin applications for planning permissions– one to build a new stadium at Horntye, the other to build a housing estate on the existing ground at Pilot Field – without which it would no doubt have found potential funders slow to take any interest. But the Heads of Terms were never agreed or signed, and Ms Hartnell’s report confirms that very little further formal contact or discussion took place before Cllr Barnett effectively pulled the plug over a year ago in March 2022.
It concludes: “The council has not been satisfied that even with the sale of the freehold of the Pilot Field there would be sufficient value generated through its development to meet the full cost of the proposals for the Tilekiln site. There remains concern that there would be a funding deficit estimated to be in the region of £2m.
“In addition to the lack of a viable business plan, and no agreement having been reached on a profit-sharing mechanism, there has been little or no satisfactory consultation with local residents in the areas affected, and insufficient recognition of the true meaning of the provision of community facilities.
“Furthermore, there has been no response to the draft heads of terms proposed by the council in 2021 and therefore no indication that the £8m bond required to protect taxpayers’ interests could be secured.”
Nothing in the report indicates that Ms Hartnell has consulted further with the club since December in preparing it, nor indeed with anyone else except her own staff. Nor has she even attempted to address the second limb of the direction to her, namely to consider any alternative provision for the club’s future. It is difficult to understand, therefore, save as a matter of her having alternative priorities, why it should have taken her nearly six months to produce it.
It is easy to predict, however, that the cabinet will find little to debate on Monday, and will agree to follow Ms Hartnell’s recommendation.
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