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Things have quietened down a bit today after a very busy week for all involved with FOUL. Here's a summary of the weeks events:
Saturday - Before the home game against Watford FOUL members were out in force with clipboards in an attempt to boost the membership. Although the final number of new members isn't yet known or entered into the database we are confident that FOUL now has over 1000 members. If you haven't joined yet then please go back to the main page and click on the "Join FOUL" button. FOUL is in constant contact with various national and local government bodies and other organisations as we fight the case for the club. The more members we have then the more notice people (particularly politicians) will take of us. Also the greater the membership then the more people we can ultimately call on to turn up at meetings, write letters or add their name to a petition as events unfold.
Tuesday - Firoz Kassam had met with members and officers of Oxford City Council the previous day to discuss the proposed deal to restart the stadium and the associated leisure and hotel developments. The feedback from this meeting that we got from both sides was that things had gone well and were heading in the right direction. The final deal would have to be voted on by OCC Strategy & Resources Committee and then endorsed by a full council meeting. Still to be addressed were the exact details of the deal with Taylor Woodrow and whether any money would need to be paid to Thames Water as part of the settlement for their breach of covenant action.
Just before midday on Tuesday we were informed that OUFC had submitted a planning application to be heard at the planning meeting the following day. This application was for outline permission for a commercial leisure development but still excluded a multiplex cinema. In fact it was an application that had been prepared alongside the original stadium application and as such should be passed without great problems as all the major conditions attached had been satisfied under the stadium permission. Unfortunately this wasn't to be that easy as the crap had already hit the fan!
We were informed that somebody had applied to the Government Office for the South East (GOSE), which is the regional office representing central government departments, to suggest the planning application should be "called in" by central government. In other words it was suggested that the government should step in and take control of the decision out of the local planning committee's hands. Such a development would introduce a very long delay and would almost certainly call into question Kassam's involvement with the club.
We found out that GOSE had not actually called in the decision but put an Article 14 holding order on the decision which essentially meant no planning permission could be granted until GOSE had decided whether to call in the decision and refer it to John Prescott. This was likely to take 28 days.
Tuesday afternoon was spent calling people and frantically faxing documents. We managed to track down the instigator of the application to GOSE. It turned out to be Cllr Mike Woodin a member of OCC Planning Committee and one of three Green Party members on the council. We not only sent off a fax to GOSE expressing our concern that such a delay could be fatal for the football club but also made sure that Cllr Woodin heard from many of us. It was explained to him in great detail what the likely result of his action was.
Wednesday - FOUL were represented at the Planning Meeting at Oxford Town Hall to see Cllr Mike Woodin receive a severe reprimand from the Committee Chair, Maureen Christian for his actions. Not only had he gone ahead with his application to GOSE without any consultation with the committee he had also misinterpreted the planning report, believing that it included an application for a multiplex cinema. Although he apologised for the problems he had caused this was little consolation to anybody.
The planning meeting itself made a decision to effectively agree the application for planning unaltered by delegating the decision to council officers subject to the GOSE holding order being lifted - Whenever that was. Apart from Cllr Woodin's actions the only other councillor to question the application was Tony Stockford member for Blackbird Leys. Cllr Stockford was not a member of the planning committee but managed to get a seat at the table by offering to substitute for an absent member.
FOUL talked with Cllr Woodin both before and after the meeting to explain our concerns. He said he would be in immediate contact with GOSE to request they dealt with the matter urgently and that his original concerns were now groundless. We were sent a copy of his letter to GOSE later that day.
Then at about 6:00pm we got the news that the holding order had been lifted and the planning application had effectively been granted. As one councillor commented: "This was a totally unbelievable and unprecedented action"!
On the plus side the football club and the urgent need for the stadium to be completed are back in the headlines locally. The fact that this is linked to the provision of modern leisure facilities for Oxford should also now be well known. On the downside, Cllr Woodin's actions have focused attention on the club's planning applications and probably made it more likely that GOSE would want to call in any eventual multiplex application. As this is crucial to financing the new stadium and the delay caused by such a calling in could undermine the whole deal FOUL will be concentrating efforts to make sure it can go ahead without being called in. Specific details about how we hope to achieve this will appear here soon.
Other news:
Balloon Race - The deadline for returned balloons from the FOUL Balloon Race is the end of the month so we can't announce a winner yet but the furthest balloon so far is one that reached Duisburg, Germany! We'll be announcing the winner as soon as the deadline is reached. The first prize is a balloon ride anywhere in the country to be taken any time between now and the end of the year.
London Irish Rugby Club - Recent reports in national newspapers have suggested that London Irish are now only looking at local groundshares and not interested in the possibility of relocating to Oxford. Geoff Huckstep, Chief Executive of London Irish informed FOUL this week that this wasn't the case and a move to Oxford "certainly wasn't dead and buried". However until the future structure of professional rugby is decided London Irish won't be making any big decisions such as this and therefore may well seek a temporary ground share locally until the future is clearer.
