Continuing BN's look back to the demise of Hereford United and the start of Hereford, we've reached the stage where supporters have backed Jon Hale's business group's plans.
But what about the Council?
Football At Edgar Street Is The Objective Says Council Leader
Tony Johnson, leader of Herefordshire Council, has gone into some detail into how the Council sees the future of Edgar Street.
"What we are saying is that the
people whoever it is that take over the ground to get football started
again at Edgar Street will need to provide certain information to the FA
by March 1st," Johnson told BBC Hereford and Worcester this morning.
"In order to meet that quite
tight deadline, it's not many weeks away, we are saying that we will not
have the time to conduct the full investigation on whoever the new
tenant would be.
"And therefore what we are
proposing to do is to offer a short lease initially, because we won't
have time between now and March 1st to conduct due-diligence on an
applicant.
"So we'll offer a short term lease to begin with so we can get football going again this year at Edgar Street.
"And once we've got a new tenant
in we will then be in discussion with whoever that tenant is whilst we
continue the rest of our investigations to make sure they are a fit and
proper person or body and then we will talk to them about what sort of
extensions etc that might be appropiate for them."
The Council Leader was then asked
if he could guarantee that football will still be being played at Edgar
Street in five years time.
"No I can't because I don't know who is going to take it on.
"Suppose we take somebody on and in three or four years time they go belly-up. What will then happen?
"We looking after a publically
owned asset, we have a responsibilty. This ground belongs to tax-payers,
not to you and I and certainly not to the Council.
"We are looking after it, we're saying if we are looking after it we will look at all possibilities.
"Nobody can guarantee that football will be played there in one year, five years or fifteen years.
"It would depend on the new person who comes in, what they want to do, their discussions with us.
"What we want to do is get
football started again at Edgar Street and we want to do it in a proper
and appropiate way having taken care of a publically owned asset.
"We won't rush into it. We want to do proper due-diligence on whoever is coming in and we will do that.
"Once that person is in and we've
got football up and running and if it looks good, why would we not then
go into negogiations with that tenant?
"They might come to us and say
we've got a big investor here who would like to put some more money in
but we would need a longer lease. Can we re-negogiate?
"Of course we would sit down and
talk with them. Suppose they came back to us and said 'we think it's
going to be that good that in five years time it's going to be huge, we
wouldn't know where to park, it's so expensive to keep this ground up.
Could you give us a different ground somewhere else in the city', of
course we would, why wouldn't we?
"The objective is to get football
again in Edgar Street and do it in a proper and responsible way and to
make sure we protect the public asset."