Good evening all.
In the interest of openness and clarity we just thought we'd respond to one or two points that have been made.
In terms of timescales, we took over the contract to run the facility on 1st September this year, so it became our responsibility for bookings from that date - hence the slightly late notice. Whilst it wasn't ideal, all bookings prior to that date were/ could have been done through the school.
With regards to the suggestion on offering this particular team a discount, this would mean that one team were paying less money than everyone else - which obviously wouldn't be fair to those other clubs and teams. Part of our proposal to take on the facility included a full budget to cover contingency fund, staffing/ site supervision etc. so we have to make that budget balance. Unfortunately we can't have one price for one team and everyone else paying a higher rate. Similarly we aren't in a position to give everyone 12 months grace to budget for the new pricing structure, because it is estimated that the facility will need resurfacing in the next 5 years at a significant cost - which we will work with the school to cover.
All other teams that used the site have agreed without any issue to the new terms - including a number of teams from the same club.
We work very closely with this club and we are actually hosting one of their disability teams at the Oldham game on Saturday, where their players will form the guard of honour and do a demonstration on the pitch at half time. We will also be supporting the club by providing free coaching to support their volunteers on the disability side of the club during the 2016-17 season.
It is unfortunate from our point of view that this issue couldn't have been resolved more privately, and there is an open invitation from us to give more details around the terms of the facility grant to include a contingency budget and our pricing structure, with those who have raised their concerns.
