Berkhamsted Football Club invites residents to public meeting to discuss the future of Broadwater

Berkhamsted Football Club has arranged a public meeting to discuss the future of Broadwater at the Town Hall next week.

The community is invited to the public meeting at Berkhamsted Town Hall on Thursday, August 19, at 7.30pm.

The meeting will be chaired by Gagan Mohindra, the MP for South West Hertfordshire.

Senior football has been played at the Lower Kings Road ground, now called Broadwater, for over a century. The club has opposed the possible relocation to Bourne End.

Members of the public are being invited to put their questions about the proposed sale of the football ground to Berkhamsted Sports Ground Charitable Association { BSGCA } Landlords / Custodians of Broadwater.

A spokesperson for BSGCA Trustees said: "The Trustees of Berkhamsted Sports Grounds Charitable Association received information about this meeting from Benny Mitchell.

"They were never consulted about the meeting.

"At the BSGCA Board meeting on 20 July they planned to discuss whether to attend the event but it transpired that the flyer promoting the event titled ‘Berkhamsted Comrades Football Club' was never seen or authorised by the BFC Board.

"This was confirmed by Grant Hastie, a Director of BFC although it seems that subsequently BFC have adopted it on their website.

"BSGCA believes this was misleading for the residents of Berkhamsted as it clearly purported to be from the football club.

"We also believe that this continuing campaign to ‘Save Broadwater’ is misleading in that there is no current context in which Broadwater needs to be saved.

"The Bulbourne Cross proposal, within which there is a potential multi-club, multi-sport site and the opportunity for BFC to move to a state of the art FA specified Step 3 stadium, is not in the draft Local Plan.

"Since there is no current possibility for a relocation of BFC there is no issue in ‘saving Broadwater’.

"Not only is Bulbourne Cross not in the Local Plan but it is not now expected that the results of the recent consultation exercise will be available until at least September 2022.

"BSGCA does not see any benefit is debating a non existent option but will be more than happy to engage fully with all stakeholders if ever a relocation options becomes a reality."