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Back to square one for stadium plan
Reporter: Janice Barker
Date online: 15 February 2010
Red tape confusion over stadium plans
Oldham Athletic’s stadium dream is back in limbo because charity experts can’t make up their mind if land at the heart of the proposed development is a trust.
Charity Commission experts say the High Court may have to rule whether the land at Failsworth Lower Memorial Park is a charitable trust or simply council recreation land.
Council chiefs are reviewing their options and will make a decision next month.
Lib-Dem Councillor Mohib Uddin, Cabinet member for regeneration, said: “Officers have now been instructed to present a report to Cabinet on March 3 to outline the next step.”
But Oldham’s opposition Labour leader, Councillor Jim McMahon, thinks it might be time for Oldham’s Liberal Democrat-controlled council to withdraw its support.
He said: “The council should now step back and consider if it is in the public interest to pursue this any further, given the court and legal costs could run into six figures.”
Oldham’s Tory leader, Councillor Jack Hulme, said: “This leaves the situation very much in a state of flux, which for all parties — residents, the authority and Oldham Athletic — is not a desirable situation to be in. We are back to square one.”
Latics chief executive Alan Hardy said he was waiting to talk to the council about the commission’s views. But residents fighting the plans for a 12,000 seater, £20 million stadium at the corner of Broadway and Oldham Road say the lack of a clear-cut case for a charity is a victory.
Failsworth activist Warren Bates and researcher Leon Clegg were contacted by Charity Commission specialist caseworker Alex Young who said: “Unless further evidence is obtained, we cannot advise the council or any other party what powers the council has to deal with the land.”
Mr Clegg said: “This land is for recreational purposes only. There is more protection because it is public land. Without doubt this justifies Failsworth Residents’ Action Group’s opposition.
“We have researched the former Failsworth Urban District Council minutes and it is clearly public land which was presented to the council for leisure and recreational use.”
Alan Shaw, chairman of the Failsworth Residents’ Action Group, said the fight would go on.
“The first battle has been won but the fight is not over.”
Comments
And yet again this council get it wrong,how much is this going to cost the taxpayer.they are nothing but a digrace to this town.
The council has to drop this now. It is not in the public interest to waste any more money and resources on supporting a private business. Latics owners have the land already at BP and should develop there instead of wanting to cash in.
The 'ostrich syndrome' has once again struck the Failsworth minority who are against the Oldham Athletic plans for the future. Supported by such luminaries as Mr. McMahon this group of 'freedom fighters' seek to destroy the future of the club. Any sane person walking around the proposed sight would be at a loss to understand why people are against the new stadium. The locality is to say the least, an eyesore. The new developement would lift Failsworth into the 21st century. God help us!!!!
I can see another big tax bill coming
A calamity from the start this ground! Why can it just not be built on BP..............Oh i know, cash for the land!!
For me, it was a bad choice to take furman off. It's alright saying that whittaker is a more attack minded player - but we were well in control of the game and looked the more likley team to score and that was partly down to the fact that Furman was winning the ball in the middle of the field.
You could say it paid off but i don't think whittaker had much to do with the goal and didn't really do anything after he came on....for me the substitution should have been colbeck for smalley...
So Alan Shaw and his Small band of activites think they have won a battle to stop a £20M investment that will bring alot more recreation facilities to the area than a patch of waste gound could ever do.Its people like them that ruin it for the rest of the community.They should go and hug a tree somewhere else or even better go to both poles and try and stop Global Warming.
Proven by the recent kitchen fiasco, OMBC is a total embarrassment. I don't want to go to FW, but I vehemently want my club to survive, unlike the PC mad, anti it's own residents disgrace that is OMBC. The Three Amigos must come from the USA and what a hell hole it is? They'd have been better buying Chester. OMBC resign enmass! Glad I now live in Hyndburn.
ps. No cinema or bowling alley, Town Hall decaying, Sports Centre smells like a toilet, M&S, IKEA the swedes say Oldham Nil Points - look at Bolton, Ashton, Rochdale, Bury you utter, utter disgrace to your own taxpayers!!
Once again the children are out causing more problems, why can't this FRAGO lot see that all of this outline plan is of long term benefit to almost every Failsworth resident, bringing better facilities, better, allotments, better park areas and of course JOBS....
The ALTERNATIVE dear FRAGO is - lots of new houses on the land that the owners of OAFC now own, intended as the base for the new ground - if this fails again the outlook for everyone in that area is bleak with a housing estate to come!
Recreational land shouldn't be built on. People need spaces! Leave the football club where they are and let them sort out the pitch they have.
Once again the NIMBYs seem to be the most protected species of Oldhamers. Sports Park 2000- no thanks say Lib/Dems. leisure complex on Union St - no thanks say Lib/Dems so it went to Ashton Moss, Tameside. Latics in Failsworth - now it is Labour's turn to say no thanks. Open your eyes you politicians while you are scoring party political points. Latics have a a stadium well past it's sell by date and Oldham Roughyeds have NO stadium. Wigan, Hull and Huddersfield Council's put Oldham to shame.
oh dear oh dear! this just gets worse and worse.
i believe this will still get forced through by our disgraceful oldham council. wasting more and more tax payers money to get their greedy hands on boundry park development monies!
even after all the backlash they'll still not listen!
I did not want the stadium build in wanna be manc heartland where they all talk with anoying terry christian accents but i swear i will celebrate with glee the first pourings of concrete as it will force these FRAG idiots to re join planet earth and find something worthy of genuine concern.
Why do negative stories about Latics' plans appear on the front page, whilst positive stories (eventually) appear on the inner pages?
If the opponents of the plans consider a non-decision by the Charity Commission as a victory, do they expect to be defeated in the long run?
If Oldham Council did withdraw their support would Latics' sue them for the £3.25m they've already spent on the project?
The biter bit. The sheer irony of this after the campaign the Lib Dems supported over the trust status of the Clayton Playing Fields.
I still don't see who is going to take the Boundary Park land off Latics hands if they can't get anyone to invest in the housing schemes already approved for the land around the stadium.
And if the then Latics board had gone for the Westhulme otion in 1996 we could have had a new stadium 10 years ago.
Once again this beloved Council let the club down and make a town hall's of it. They not only let the rugby club down they seem hell bent on their being no proffesional sport in the area.
It's about time they put their weight behind Latics or no-one will want to visit Oldham at all, because the town centre is a disgrace and if it was not for OLDHAM ATHLETIC the town will get no mention at all, and a lot of money that is generated by people visiting the area who are ans of opposing teams.
I blame Dave Penney
I dont believe it again,
dont you get it? your the reason this town is a mess! stupid residents who wont let anything be built because there is the possibility of the thought of a 0.1% percent chance the very slightest of disturbances could be caused,
bet if you win this you will be complaining that "nothing ever gets done in this town" wont you?
who would want to invest in oldham now with PC mad people like you in town,
hope they sell the land and build a prison there for you!
There is nothing wrong with Boundary Park as a location, the chief executive has been there most of his working life, a development plan 10 years ago would have recognised the problems.
Failsworth was never a realistic option, I am so pleased sense has to provail
It's fun to blame OMBC, the residents or the Nimby's but has anybody considered that Latics brought this on themselves? Corney stated on the Latics website that the Charity Commission decision was "no surprise". Well I'm sorry but they are idiots if they draw up plans, convince all the fans of the new stadium and then admit that they were not sure if they could get hold of the land.
Cart and Horse spring to mind.
Best news ive heard yet, now lets get a stadium built in OLDHAM not Manchester, sedons all the way for me, bowling alley, cinema, restaurants. lets make it into a sports college town, it would even be on the metrolink route, me and my family went to bury market this weekend it was packed full of shoppers from all over, what has our town centre got, NOWT
Well well,once again we are in a big pil o muck over Owdum.
Seems to me that nowt much has changed since I left there in 1966.Has anybody ever taken the time to count the many failures that past Borough Councils have had.To name a very famous one St Peter's Precinct and the subsequent closure of the main town centre.
I agree with Accrington Blue.Yes maybe the advent of Tv did change the way we sought entertainment but I recall when the Greater Oldham Area had more that 15 cinemas of all sizes
You can also look at this as NIMBYs have failed to prove that the land can't be used so how is this a "first battle won" victory????
I was trying to think of a place that hasn't got a team that we could move Latics to, since the council don't want the team.
Was an absolute farce
The spectre of Clayton Playing Fields revisits the town again. Not sure who is most to blame, the club who know the full history or the Councillors, many of whom were involved the first time round.
Watch the Chron front page in a couple of weeks time. It'll be worth it.
Deja Vu ! Exactly the same situation as when the Council issued plans for a revamped ground for Oldham Rugby - and we all know what eventually happened to those !
Latics' fans; if you still expect the Oldham Council to give the club any support, then start looking for directions to Kendal; Buxton and Matlock, or any other grounds in the Unibond League, because that is where you will be playing in a few years after the local authority's promises are again shown to be false !
I don't know who's at fault here,but I do know;
Before I put any of my cash into a property venture, I would make sure that I had all permissions in place.
Furthermore, if I owned land I would know exactly what I could and could not do with it.
Thank You Vance Miller!!!!
It seems to be that the 'powers that be' at both ORLFC and at OAFC have nobody (between them) that could do a good deal. So many 'ifs and but's', false dawns, pie-in-the-sky ideas and nothing actually sorted out. It's a shambles at present.
Even here in Singapore (a football mad country - especially EPL) I am asked what has gone wrong with 'Joe Royle's Oldham' as they all recall the 'heady days and just loved Andy Ritchie. I wish I could give them an answer or at least get one from the clubs.
How short the memories are for the NIMBY's - Latics said all along they wanted to develop BP - and what happened???Nimby's there and OMBC delayed the process so when it was fianlly given OUTLINE permission the economy had collapsed. Where were all the plastic mancs then supporting the development for the town of oldham?? NOWHERE. Thats the inert problem of this town - people not caring (they say they do) but when it comes to it they do nothing about it. Hence no facilities or prospects. Its sad
Oldham Athletic are presently in a slow decline with an at best mediocre team with dwindling support, the trapdoor is yawning for league two, and so many think a brand new stadium is going to change this eh? Now is not the time to leave Boundary Park, I would have thought that would be obvious...It all smacks of desperation and a yearning for the "Glory" days.
I dont understand why they are opposed? they keep changing their minds depending on what has the best chance of stopping the plans (I.E. if they have problems with the traffic reports theyre against it because of too much congestion and now its this charity commission problem so theyre against it because they think its public land)
make up your minds, oldham want to work on a solution with you and yet your just too stubborn and want to win, regardless of what is best for the area/town
We lack community spirit nowadays, we used to be together as a community and care about our town moving forward, nowadays people dont want to move forward with the community they just want to be stubborn and fight against any plans just for the sake of fighting,
Don't know where rjs gets their info from but the Outline plan & support for redevelopment of BP was all there in the
Beyond Oldham vision put out by the Council in 2006. Why has it taken so long for OAFC to get round to discovering the only (purported)reason they they "couldn't" do it was because of the price of land. If they waited another year or two , it might have been back up again. Or may they then have too find another excuse.
Hornblower - This was a stupendous victory for the action group. Don't get me wrong here - I'm not talking about being for or against the stadium. I'm talking about the Charity Commission not approving a council decision to dispose of land. Since Labour put their monkeys into the Commission, land has been sold up and down the country for fun. Labour are desperate for money from development.
I have just heard that Latics are moving to a 12000 seater stadium in Manchester Connecticut, a small high school says we can share with them !! It all about land and houses Latics comes a very small second
Still, looking forward to a trip to Colchester; great council backed "community stadium" (built a good 10 miles from the old run down one)with a great board, a team who are going places (cos they brought in a manager with proven success at higher levels...not someone who managed to keep Darlington in Division Two!). The narrow minded FRAG NIMBY's should be made to go there and see how it has revived the whole town. Plus, being forced to watch Latic's will be a suitable punishment.
Well, what did you all expect? The council backed the club's redevelopment of BP, the fans all got behind it, only for the board to pull the plug and start on an expensive, unpopular change of location. and by prioritising this, it's also having a detrimental effect on the team, too. Latics board and council - inept and out of touch.
it beggars belief that a organisation the size of OAFC did not investigate land ownership restrictions before they went down this route. Do they not have any experts on board?
Have Your Say
This could only happen to Oldham! Who's running this show, "dads army".
Rebuild boundary park I guess. Either way, something needs to happen
By Lytham&blues @ 15/02/2010 12:20:19