Opponents win deadline extension on football club proposals

THE resolution of whether or not Wisbech Town FC can extend the opening hours of their newly built clubhouse on the Lynn Road is yet to be decided, despite the precipitous and incorrect assertions on the club’s website.

THE resolution of whether or not Wisbech Town FC can extend the opening hours of their newly built clubhouse on the Lynn Road is yet to be decided, despite the precipitous and incorrect assertions on the club’s website.

Whatever the outcome we really must take issue with West Norfolk Council over the process by which the proposed extension of licensing hours was publicised for public scrutiny and comment.

The council insists the onus was on the club to satisfy the legal requirements for the proposals to be advertised both on the premises and in a newspaper “which circulates in the area”.

Which is fine and two papers, including our own, circulate within the area covered by the new stadium.

Therefore it came as a surprise that the extension of hours was advertised not in either of the two Wisbech papers but in the Lynn News and Advertiser which neither purports to cover Wisbech but has a handful of sales in the town for those inclined to catch up with news from Kings Lynn and West Norfolk.

Whilst the lawyers who placed the advertisement may have stayed within the technical requirements of the law, we do not accept they stayed within the spirit of the law.

West Norfolk Council has now extended both the consultation for the licensing extension and for a variation of planning conditions and that should be sufficient to allow residents to scrutinise the proposals.

We offer no comment on the merit of the club’s case or those of the residents who oppose the application.

But it is the duty of both the council and the club to ensure that the debate is both fair and transparent and we hope it will now be so.