David is ready to take on Goliath

Why does Racing Club need to negotiate a new lease? If everything that you and your officers did regarding the Ministry of Defence moving onto the Racing Club site was done correctly and legally then surely two bona fide leases were issued at the time. However, the fact that WDC has previously collected rent from the MOD for its building and has also collected rent, for the same period, from Racing Club for the whole site (including the MOD building) makes me wonder. Why should Racing Club now have to negotiate a new lease and let your officers get away with what appears to be at best, negligence.

When a representative from the MOD states that they know they do not have a valid lease and that we can take them to court to have them removed if we have £200,000 to spare, then I’m sure you can understand our frustration!

As for the grant aid given to Racing Club Warwick, I’m sure if you check back through your records, you may find that it is more than that. However, if you can find an audit trail for all the money given, then I feel that this should be made public, as I am struggling to see where any of the money was actually spent! As this is public money, your officers should be able to account for every penny. Good luck with that!

When our new committee was formed nearly two years ago, which included members of Warwick Town Council, the £120,000 that was left from the Bread and Meat Close grant was withheld. Presumably, this was because WDC was concerned about what had happened to the other grants and monies given to the previous regime. Racing Club accepted this and at a committee meeting, Andrew Jones stated that this money was still ring-fenced for Racing Club and would be released to us when we could show good governance at the club (copies of the minutes are available).

We have cleared the £148,000 debt that we were left with, have increased the membership of the club, are holding monthly committee meetings to ensure that the club runs properly and are able to produce full and audited accounts (something that hadn’t been done for a number of years). How does WDC reward all that effort? It withdraws the £120,000 promised and blames the club for being too greedy!

I might suggest that, had WDC shown good governance when issuing the earlier grants and had it created proper audit trails and demanded to see audited accounts this mess may have been avoided. Also, there would have been no need for one of its officers to stand behind the bar frantically shredding paperwork – luckily for us, a lot of this paperwork had been duplicated.

Unfortunately, whilst all this posturing is going on, we are unable to push forward with our plans to offer local children the opportunity to play football and represent Racing Club, as we have lost our pitches on the racecourse. Therefore, we need to attract sponsorship to help with the costs of hiring pitches etc, however, attracting them to Racing Club when we are continually rubbished and threatened with closure by WDC leaves us in a difficult position.

It was interesting to read a short note in the Courier a couple of weeks ago about children causing problems on Chase Meadow. This was a few weeks after our posts were removed and as I understand it, the solution proposed is for the builders to put up some goalposts on a spare piece of ground on the estate to keep these children occupied. Who will be providing the insurance cover for this?

If I am wrong on any of these matters and you can prove to me that everything concerning the MOD moving onto the Racing Club site has been handled correctly, I will publicly apologise to all the parties concerned.

Unfortunately, because of certain restrictions, a lot of Courier readers will not know the full story and the pressure that has been put on Racing Club. This is a David against Goliath situation and as they story goes, Goliath thought he only had to flex his muscles and try to intimidate and ridicule his foes and they would run off with their tale between their legs! However, let me warn you that our slingshot is loaded and hopefully, the battle will be over soon. The question is - whose head will be removed? - Phil Haycock, Barnack Drive, Warwick