Plainmoor Freehold

I put in a the freedom of information request to see whether anyone had made a pre-application enquiry about relocating Torquay United or any other club specifically at The Willows or anywhere in Torquay. The answer was - no one had. This does not preclude closed door, private talks with the mayor/planning department (Nolan report?) but shows that no official relocation and new ground project is in the offing. It struck me as a bit odd that the promotional video came out while I was waiting for a reply (application submitted 2nd Feb - answer received yesterday). This is a really big building project involving demolition, contamination, drainage. No public consultation has been done yet, an essential ingredient of an application this size. No big property consultancy has been called in yet as far as I know. This makes me think, and I would add that this is only my private gut reaction, that GI are not really interested in progressing their project until they get a thumbs up from the decision makers at the council. The good work by the forums which hopefully can be disseminated to the decision makers in the absence of our local press will show that GI are not to be trusted, that you cannot complain about their stadium building as they haven't built any.

Thanks for doing that, Sam.

Oh OK Jon. I have been travelling the past week and haven't been on line much. Saw a video put on the forums. I thought it was one that GI had put together. I never saw the original. My mistake and apologies for the confusion.

Hopefully followed by Harrop, Owers, Assistant and Hedges...

Does anyone know the length of Owers contract?

It was having owners with a bottomless pit of money that got us into this position in the first place. Responsible ownership will mean financial sustainability, that in turn means supporters having realistic expectations. But as long as any perspective new owners are genuine football fans then Torquay united has a chance to compete on footballing terms.

Have unashamedly copied this from Merse on BTPIR. Views not necessarily my own. Make your own minds up.



Why are the council denying freedom of information?
sinister secrecy at the Town Hall


A recent request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) on the situation regarding the Plainmoor freehold was requested and rejected by the Council, as they claim not to be able to provide, any correspondence it holds over proposals on the freehold sale of the football ground at Plainmoor, claiming "it is exempted from the right of access". However there are often stories to be had from requests that are rejected as much as from requests that are successful.......

torquayfans.com contributor Mellow Yellow reported on there last night: Why block the 'right of access'? And what are the grounds for this exemption? This may surprise a large contingent of Torquay United supporters and townsfolk, as according to the Council: "In all circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information."

So there you have it. In layman terms 'telling us nothing outweighs telling us something'

One would think with the promise of a new 'Riveria Stadium' prior to the sale of the Plainmoor freehold with all its investment and spend to benefit the Torquay community, there is nothing to hide. Any harm caused by disclosure, surely, could only be minimal, so there is likely to be little public interest in maintaining the exception, especially given the presumption in favour of disclosure. So why is the Council adhering to 'telling us nothing outweighs telling us something' unless the harm is not minimal but something quite 'catastrophic'?

Regrettably we are not going to find out (not yet anyway) as according to the Council, "discussions at this stage in relation to Plainmoor are considered to be exempt from disclosure according to Council under Sections 40 - Commercial Interests and 41 - Duty of Confidence, of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and Exception 12(5)(f) - Commercial Interests of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004". Read into the above as you will. But it appears to suggest it is to protect the commercial interests and confidentiality of Clarke Osborne and is legitimate for the Council to take into account any harmful effect on specific Council functions where that results from a reduction in the flow of (voluntarily) supplied information from Clarke Osborne.

So maybe all is not as it seems ~ Should alarm bells be ringing?
In fairness the Council did state "Any decisions made in relation to any Council asset would follow the normal decision making process which would involve elected members". But even that does not fill one with confidence given many of these elected members do not know themselves what is going on. After Clarke Osborne's statement of "The Mayor and the Council are aligned in this vision" Cllr Adrian Saunders was quoted as saying. "Where does he get this idea from? The Council hasn't discussed this or any other 'vision' for TUFC. It's claims like this that make me suspicious, and not just of the club's owner". Then there was Cllr Dave Thomas who told Torbay MP Kevin Foster there is no discussions with Councillors and no plans for a new stadium put forward for consideration.

It appears that alarms bells should be ringing when Cllr's say they know nothing about the vision for TUFC and yet the Council see fit to withhold information on discussion held in relation to Plainmoor based on it being in our interest to know nothing rather than know something.

In summary, we are to be left in total darkness as to what discussion are going on over proposals on the freehold sale of the football ground at Plainmoor and with whom. This almost has all the hallmarks of a 'behind closed doors' storyline of 'West Wing'.

Brief extracts of the FOI material have be reproduced under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (sections 29 and 30) for the purposes of research for non-commercial purposes, criticism, review and news reporting.
www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/contents

Surely the most damning of evidence that Clarke Osborne is industrious indeed on realising a return for his near £1 million 'investment' into what is superficially referred to as 'Torquay United' by the slothful local media and swallowed whole by the more gullible supporters of the club and the tame Herald Express staff but of course is his slow burn way of turning the screw on the local politicians.

Give him enough time of strangling the life out of this football club and it's relationship with it's supporters, and it will drop so low in the football pyramid a cheapo ground something akin to Buckland Athletic will be put up as the so called Riviera Stadium rather like his 'IKEA style' self assembly job sitting in a South Wales yard still waiting to be moved to Swindon.

Let's end this pretence which is also perpetrated by Owers and Harrop that only Clarke Osborne's injection of capital is keeping this club alive that some posters on here use as ammunition to throw at those more diligent and sceptical than they are.

The council's refusal to grant access to what they have is both scandalous and undemocratic if not downright corrupt and who's to say it is democratically elected councillors Osborne is 'aligned with' and not salaried officers of the council?

Nailed on dead cert.