Often criticised, but it looks to me like their part purchase of the ground and surrounding land in 2003 helped defeat whatever were the wider ambitions of Lee and Conway. If so, we should be grateful to them.
Is the land really that valuable, and if it does have such a high value why would the council sell at a discount, disadvantaging local people who pay their council tax? The land sold for around £5.2m when Oakwell Community Assets purchased the property. No doubt the council would be looking to achieve market value on any sale. The more I think about this the more I think that the new owners thought BFC was a bit of a free hit, relatively low purchase cost, drop on a couple of successful player finds and they can recoup the low initial outlay. They had the option to purchase the ground but decided not to as they believed they couldn’t get free title. Was this another example of their true strategy of minimum investment to allow them to run the club without having to part with more capital? All supposition and no doubt, in time, the truth will out.
it was pc's idea and done to stop "developers" from using the land to make a mini meadowhall (with skating rink/bowling alley to keep with tiverton preedy legacy)and scupper bmbc's plans for the town centres ideas
All credit to BMBC. There are no circumstances and no Owners who could ever be in place that would cause me to want to sell their share of the ground. I’d probably go further and suggest they take overall control a la so many municipalising Europe.
