Statement Regarding the Football Pavilion

The Football Pavilion was realised through community raised funds being built on land owned by the Council. The Football Pavilion is under the ownership of the Council, however, an agreement was put in place that the Football Club would rent the club at a charge of £1 per annum and the Football Club would, at its own expense, maintain the building fittings and decoration and pay all charges and expenses arising from the upkeep of the Football Pavilion.

While any formal agreement held between the Parish Council and the Football Club has lapsed, in principle the roles of responsibility have remained. The Parish Council have continued to insure the building and have funded a number of remedial works (a sum running into the thousands). Likewise, the Football Club have completed some maintenance and continued to pay for the running costs of the Pavilion, which given the age of the facility are higher than would be paid for a more modern structure.

In recent years, the Council has maintained aspects of the building. This included the replacement of half the tiles on the roof, financed by the Council (with works completed by a Member of the Council), funding of two refurbs (where staff from Baxter Healthcare donated their time to carry out the work) and the funding of the purchase of building materials at a cost of £905 for the Football Club to carry out work in 2015/16.

The Council’s Parish Assets & Management Working Party originally made contact with the Football Club in October 2018. On gaining access into the building, they were dismayed and saddened by the internal condition. Evidence indicated the facility had been poorly maintained (toilets unfixed, a sink hanging off the wall, drains completely mud-bound and generally in a poor state of repair and cleanliness throughout).

The Working Party reported back to the Council, expressing disappointment that the Council had failed to monitor the condition of the Football Pavilion, but responsibility for the condition of the building rested with the Football Club alone.

The Football Club requested changes to the Football Pavilion in order to meet a specification provided by the league that required a referee’s changing room to be added to the facility. A copy of this specification was requested by the Council in December 2018 and this was received from the Football Club in May 2019. In June 2019 the Council began seeking quotes for the work on the Football Pavilion. Nine building firms have been approached to provide quotes. For a variety of reasons, the Council has not yet received a quote from any of these firms. To meet financial regulations the Council is attempting to secure three quotes, as soon as possible.

In its current condition, and with the new league position of Compton Football Club, the Club have advised that they are unable to use the Pavilion, although they still have permission to do so. Compton Parish Council apologise unreservedly to both the members of Compton Football Club and its supporters for this disappointment.

The vision remains for the Pavilion to be renovated to provide a village facility for wider-use and a place that the whole community can once again, be proud of.

While moving forward, to enable a facility for community events in the Recreation Ground, with both kitchen and toilet facilities, the intention is not for the facility to provide a revenue stream (financial regulation does not permit this). However, it will be necessary to operate a model of charges associated to rental and to cover ongoing running costs. This will almost certainly involve the Football Club in constituting itself in a more formal manner.

Due to the high cost of such refurbishment, the need to ensure the facility is of a good enough specification for use by the whole community inclusively, and the assurance of best-practice when proportionately spending local tax-payers money, it will be necessary to seek additional financial sponsorship via grant funding.

The Football Club has highlighted that they received a grant of £3,000 from Tesco to install a referee changing room which they have had to return as it has not been spent within a specified time limit. The Council previously requested that the Football Club use this funding to purchase an external storage facility as, at this time, the kitchen area and the area needed to be converted to the referees changing room are currently being used as a storage-hold for the Club.

In order to move forward with this project, the Council has requested the Football Club take a more active part in seeking quotes for the refurbishment, aiming to ensure that the specifications required by the football league are satisfied.

The Council would like to thank the representative from Compton FC for giving their time to outline the leagues requirements to the Chairman in order to assist with meeting with the building firms to obtain quotes. The Council trusts that the Football Club can continue to be more engaged with this process going forward. In this regard it would be useful if the Football Club could advise the Council on what modifications to the building would be mandatory if a reconstituted Club began to compete again.