HEREFORDSHIRE Council has this week committed itself to discuss “any suggestions” as to how it could help save Hereford United.

The commitment came from Councillor Harry Bramer, cabinet member for assets, who said the council is “very concerned”  about the preservation of football at Edgar Street.

That commitment, however, stops short of any cash bailout for the Bulls.

Both the council and the club worked closely to negotiate new leases on the ground to support the future sustainability of a club closely intwined with the county’s politics.

 

Assigning the Edgar Street leases – one for 75 years on the ground and terracing to the west, the other for 33 years for the stand and parking area to the east and both dating from 1982 - was one of the last big deals done by the former Hereford City Council.

During the late 1990s, with United facing severe financial problems, the leases were reassigned to property developers in return for a £1m capital injection into the club.

 

The money was made available through two companies, the BS (Bristol Stadium) Group and Chelverton.

BS and Chelverton took equal ownership of a special purpose company called Formsole Ltd which made the investment and held the leases – as the tenant under both – with the club holding sub-leases.

 

By August 2001, BS had sold its “loan” to Chelverton which ran into trouble little over a year later when control of the leases passed to Carillion Richardson.

United still owed £1m plus interest to Formsole which stayed solvent when Chelverton went into liquidation.

 

It was about this time there was talk of United leaving Edgar Street allowing Formsole to sell the site.

This talk came to nothing and by 2003 it was clear the club was staying at Edgar Street.

 

The reassignment of the leases was supported by Herefordshire Council when it took control of the former city council’s affairs.

Getting the leases back was pitched as a political priority when the news broke in April 2010 that then United chairman Graham Turner and vice chairman Joan Fennessy were ready to sell their majority shareholding in the club.

The club began negotiations with Carillion Richardson for the return of the leases almost as soon as the Keyte-Russon takeover was completed in June that year.

That deal was done by December with the club paying £452,000 to secure the return of the leases and settle a £1,069,500 debt to Richardsons Developments, clearing the way for a new single lease and the development opportunities that could bring.