From today's Sun;
"Peterborough are celebrating after the council bought their London Road ground for £8.65m. Posh chairman Darragh MacAnthony said, "This is a fantastic move to help secure the future of football in the city. We are keen to work with the council to ensure we have a first-class stadium."



Discuss.

Get Jeff Stelling as mediator. Its not as if he'll take sides...........

Yesterdays news

I don't blame the council for not selling the ground to pools. the stories I've heard lately about pools activities I wouldn't sell it to them either.

Very interesting replies, but none of you seem to have addressed what I considered to be the most pertinent point here, namely that Peterborough have just SOLD their ground to the council and think that this is in the best long term interests of their club.

Now notwithstanding the question as to where the council has found that kind of money, how come they consider the issue of ground ownership completely oppositely to HUFC / IOR?

I was going to raise that but didn't because the one vital piece of information that is missing are the terms.
What are the councils development plans ?
How much is the rent?
Is there a buy back clause?

Pools have no buy back clause.
Our council have invested nothing.
Our rent is peppercorn.

Allegedly of course.

Well, as a nasty suspicous bastad ((c)ADG-Fat Barrabas) I'd say that Peterborough Council would really like that land just on the edge of the town centre and right by the river, with that massive unsurfaced car park outside the away end.

Now say Peterboroughs new owners are a bit ambitious and want to build another concrete bowl on land already earmarked by the council for them and in the meantime, the Council buy their ground, and at a non too subtle point evict them, citing envirnonmental issues or climate change, then everyones sitting pretty.

Council get the land, Peterborough have a wedge in the bank towards their new 'stadium' (bet it looks like Colchester's) and possibly a ridiculously cheap lease and all the building permissions they need.

Could it really be that simple??

I can't believe you're in civil's Fatty and couldn't work that out.....

Swansea and Hull councils have shown the way forward with these schemes. Newcastle don't own their own ground either. Community stadia could be the long term answer if there is a will to find the funding. Let's face it, cut spending on drug addicts, criminals, wank-ers who have never worked/won't work, economical migrants etc etc and each town and city could have its own suitably sized sports arena.
Why can sports grants not be awrded to clubs with local Govt owned facilities? Surely it's a safer bet that the facility will continue to exist under local Govt ownership?

Graft mate, backhanders and all at the Council Tax payers expense.

So sue me.