As the person who logged the FOI request with the Council I find it right that I come on here and explain myself. I'm not hear to bait or gloat, just explain why I did it.
I placed the FOI not as a Town fan looking for an excuse to attack the rugby club, but as an attempt to hinder the purchase of a community asset by Reactiv Media (owner T. Abbott). I believe that the ground should remain owned by the council.
At the start of the 'SOS' campaign I'd never considered looking into the rugby club aspect, but Abbott (you can insert the 'Mr' if you like, I never use it for anyone else so won't now) tied the rugby club in by attaching the rent debt of one of his companies in with purchase, linking the two in my eyes.
When his bid was questioned the default answer was 'trust me', and some fans on here said we should trust him due the money he's invested in the town and how honourable he was. He also claimed that the stadium was loss making.
It turns out that he can't be trusted to pay the bills of another business he co-owns (HRLFC) on time, and he's not putting money into the town as he's now over £60k in debt to the council, plus lost interest on that money that it will never see again.
The previous FOI made it clear that an agreement had been reached by both sides to pay the debt, in full, by 31.12.2013. No mention what-so-ever was made about any of it being tied up in the now defunct purchase of the Shay. That date has been missed, and the debt has grown since. This blows the 'trust' argument totally out of the water for me, and the rugby club can no longer hide behind the argument that this will all be taken care of when the ground is sold. Calderdale MBC obviously don't see that as the current arrangement.
If he successfully buys the ground, and needs a mortgage on it (unless he can rustle up £2.5 million when he can't get £60k together), what would happen to the ground if he approached his mortgage payments in the same way? It'd be repossessed, sold to the highest bidder and both clubs would be up the swanny or the council would have to buy it back for more than they sold it for.
I'd like to repeat this isn't an attack on the club. I've said on another thread on shaymen.net that I'd hope if the football club was in difficulty the council would extend our payment terms to help us out short term. However, until any deal with Reactiv is publicly dismissed totally by CMBC then I feel it's a democratic duty to raise concerns.
I also don't think your board of directors owe me an explanation. However I do believe they owe the people of Calderdale an explanation, as they owe the tax payers this money.
I hope this post is accepted with the same decency as I've approached you, and will attempt to answer any questions you have with regards to my motives.
