I today wrote an email to Anna Firth, MP. With some minor alterations concerning my identity, it reads as follows:
Dear Ms Firth,
I should say at the outset that I am not a constituent of yours. I was born in Rochford Hospital, brought up in a road close to the former SUFC stadium in Grainger Road, and attended Westcliff Grammar School. After A Levels I joined BP and moved to London. My brother lives with his partner in Leigh.
I am 76 years old and have supported Southend United since I was 7, since 1953. It is not something you can get out of your blood.
As I know you are aware, the club is about to go out of existence, due totally to the appalling mismanagement of the Chairman, Mr Ron Martin.
No facts concerning the Kimura Group have been made public, but as I understand it, the situation is as follows:
Kimura have made a firm offer to buy the club and the land on which the training ground sits, the land on which the stadium is to built, together with the planning permission already granted for a 21,000 seater four sided arena. They have no interest in ownership of other land at Fossetts Farm due to be developed as a much needed housing estate. They have also no interest in the land on which Roots Hall sits.
Mr Martin has turned down this offer, making it clear that he is happy to sell the loss-making club but unwilling to sell the land, insisting on retaining ownership of a proposed 16,000 seater three sided stadium in which a bunch of hideous flats is incorporated. Planning permission has NOT been granted for this aspect of the development.
While all this has been going on since March (and in a wider sense since before the 2008 banking crash), Mr Martin has made it clear that he is no longer willing or more likely able to fund the football club. Debts are huge, the club is insolvent and, it seems to me, the directors of South Eastern Leisure may be breaking the law, trading whilst insolvent.
Mr Martin has said on several occasions that Roots Hall is a cash cow and that the future viability of Southend United depends on being able to move into the new stadium at Fossetts Farm. Whilst acknowledging this, he refuses to allow Kimura the possibility of making the club profitable, by denying them ownership of the stadium and the training facilities.
All this you know Ms Firth.
No one can make Mr Martin sell the club. But I think there is one solution. A compulsory purchase order can be made where there is a compelling case in the public interest. The continuing survival of Southend United Football Club is such a compelling case. The club means a very great deal to many thousands of fans living in the city, and elsewhere, and is of significant benefit, economically and culturally, to the life of the city, more so if the ambitious plans of Kimura are fulfilled.
The council should rapidly agree a fair price for the land and planning permission for the stadium, compulsorily purchase it at that price from Mr Martin, and immediately sell it to Kimura. Mr Martin’s plans for the housing developments would be unaffected. The club would then be properly run and funded. And we as fans would be shot of Mr Martin.
Thanks for your time.
Yours sincerely,
…………………Hereford
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