The latest from Chairman Ben Clasper, from the programme of our Home game against St Albans City on Saturday, February 19th.

I am extremely pleased to be able to report that this week we finalised the Section 106 agreement between the stadium owners, the club and Southwark Council. The final points on the agreement were negotiated two weeks ago and submitted to the GLA for their review and approval. Notice was received on Tuesday that the Mayor was happy for the Council to proceed to signatures.

This marks the end of an 18-month long process since our planning application was approved in the planning committee meeting in July 2020 and the agreement will ensure that all parties are committed to delivering the stadium and residential development in line with the basis and conditions on which that approval was originally given.
Based on the frequency of questions asked by fans in the past few months I know it has been a source of concern that the progress had slowed and we were unable to give a firm date for when we would be able to commence the development but I am confident that the extra time and care taken during this stage of proceedings will benefit everyone in the long term. The agreement acts as both the roadmap and the instruction manual for a development that will support the planned increase in sporting provision for our local community and deliver the improvements to the matchday experience that have become even more critical with our rising attendances.

In recent years the status and condition of our facilities have been the biggest threat to the club whether it is the ever-increasing cost of maintaining a failing stadium, the inability to deliver the optimal experience to a broad fan base with differing needs and preferences or even the inability to find suitable venues for our teams to train and prepare for matches. Repairs, fans having less than ideal experiences and players having less than ideal preparations have dominated our time and can often mean we feel like we are letting people down. Our staff have to fight hard every week just to stand still so we owe it to everyone associated with the club to progress this stadium so we can meet our own high standards and start to look to the future. Finalising this agreement gives us the confidence to start working with Gavin and Ryan on the journey to expand our youth offering for boys and girls and build provisions and pathways that we do not have in place today.
None of those plans are feasible without the guarantees and security that can only be achieved with the new stadium and facilities.

We have significant challenges ahead of us as we keep one eye on making sure our current stadium makes it to the finish line in a race against time, a race in which we are now coasting on fumes and the other eye on completing the steps required for the stadium to jump off the page into reality. We have only come this far by having the support of our fans, our community and our local and national representative and so we need to ask for your support again to see this to a successful conclusion as sadly in the past few weeks we have seen an increase in noise from groups who have opposed the stadium at every step. As a club we always believed in allowing a fair process to play out and so we welcomed all groups being given the same opportunity as us to have their voices heard during the application and even in the committee meeting itself. However, as someone who acts openly and honourably it concerns me that others were apparently only pretending to engage in that equal and fair process but having no intention of accepting the result if the decision did not go in their favour.

This season our fan community has grown to levels I am not sure anyone expected or would have predicted and it is important to us that we can continue to provide as much exposure to live sports as possible to the people of Southwark and neighbouring boroughs. We are living proof that a club with a focus on inclusivity, positivity and outreach can become a thriving community hub and one where we hope people are happy, welcomed and safe. After decades of uncertainty the new stadium will preserve that hub in Southwark for generations to come.