The way ahead for rugby HQ

The articles earlier this week regarding Bath Rugby Club remaining at and developing the Recreation Ground in Bath have expressed two different points of view. Bath resident Keith Davis, "Kick into touch plans for new rugby stadium", (Western Daily Press, February 23) says Bath Rugby should move and play somewhere else. And Bob Calleja, the club's chief executive officer, "Our future goals" (February 24, advises people do nothing until the economy recovers.

Bath Rugby has played on the Rec since the 1890s when a company, the Bath and County Recreation Ground Company Ltd, was set up to promote the use of the Rec having bought the Meadows, as the area was then called, from the Bathwick Estate.

All sorts of activities took place, from carnivals to exhibitions, along with various sports including a five-day cricket festival featuring the Somerset county team. The company ran into difficulties in the early 1950s and was sold to the local corporation.

The rugby club – being one of the founders of the the Rugby Football Union, the governing body for the sport in England – produced many international players throughout this period, with the first in 1894 being Frank Soane.

Before World War II, the West stand was erected, to be rebuilt after the war due to bomb damage, followed by the clubhouse in the 1960s and the Teacher's Stand on the south side in 1996. The club wished to continue its plans for modest development, but this was stopped largely due to the activities of a small minority who call themselves the "the Friends".

A court case in 2002 established that the ground was a charitable trust with the local council providing the trustees.

But the club's plans to redevelop are now thwarted, as the watchdog, the Charity Commission, considers the rugby club's presence to be a "detriment" to the area, and says it is made worse by the club's requirement to increase its occupation of the Rec from 28 per cent to 29.5 per cent to accommodate 15,000 spectators at its rugby matches. And the commission says these "detriments" would have to be appeased by creating "advantages" to the charity.

But the rugby club stated on Tuesday that even if it had this matter completely in its control, then it would still not go ahead with redevelopment at the moment because it does not believe it could find the financial backing in the recession.

So, frustration all round, not least for the 20,000 who signed the Keep Rugby on the Rec campaign a few years back. This is why the organisation, the Real Friends of the Rec, was set up to see if we could help find a solution. We now have 4,000-plus members who joined on the web at www.realfriendsoftherec.co.uk

Waiting until the economy returns to health is understandable, which is why we, the Real Friends of the Rec, say there should be a two-stage approach. First, sort the "detriments" issue, then the finance, but get on with planning.

There are stakeholders who can help on the first issue – Bath and North East Somerset Council, the Rec trustees and the Rugby Club Trust owned by the members of the old club before it was bought by the entrepreneur Andrew Brownsword and turned into a public limited company.

Those members own 22 per cent of the rugby club plc, and they still completely own the Lambridge Training Ground, which is used by the squad. The training ground could be a key factor in countering these "detriments".

The Real Friends feel that the watchdog, the Charity Commission, wants the issue resolved. And if the club does not indicate to the commission by April 9 that it wishes to continue pursuing redevelopment of the Rec, and agree "advantages", then the progress made in recent years will be lost and the whole process will go back to square one.

The next stage could be moving on to finance, planning and design. The latter will take a few years at least, during which time the financing may become easier. The design is also something that Keith Davis referred to as a reason for the club to go elsewhere. Where exactly?

The old rugby club and the plc have looked at all possible sites and found nothing in the city that is remotely possible, which means a move probably to Swindon or Exeter but certainly outside of Bath. The club is looking to redevelop, not start from scratch, but with a slightly larger footprint. The redevelopment should be something that makes a statement for our generation as the Roman Baths did 2,000 years ago and the Georgians much later.

The plans that have been discussed envisage a three-sided arena, an amphitheatre to go with our Roman heritage or Crescent to reflect the city's other architectural claim to fame.

Currently, if the rugby club left, there would be no modernisation. Indeed, the Rec, but for the club, is hardly used but, with the structures outlined, many more events would be encouraged to come.

We might see the return of the cricket festival, which was curtailed due to the cost of erecting the cricket village, 20Twenty cricket, and even a one-day international, as the Rec with a 15,000 or more capacity would meet the criteria of the sport's governing body, the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Other users might be the university's football side, Team Bath, American football with the North American universities coming to the ground, and Aussie Rules or Gaelic football, whose width of ground is the length of a rugby pitch.

It could also host classical and pop concerts, and with all this the financial side would become easier, particularly if these events were covered by TV. And TV coverage would increase the value of the naming rights, as was the case with the Ricoh Arena in Coventry that amounted to £10 million for 10 years. Not easy, but certainly worth exploring, but pointless if the commission is not satisfied.

So we urge the club and Andrew Brownsword to please meet with the other stakeholders to sort out the "detriments" now and not wait another two years, for the sake of the supporters, the citizens of the city and all the businesses who get so much from the club.

Having met with all the stakeholders and many others besides, the Real Friends are confident that there is an immediate solution to the "detriments" issue. The planning and finance will take considerable effort, but will be a great legacy and worth it if the outcome is successful. We believe it can be.

Peter Downey is chairman of the Real Friends of the Rec. He is a member of the old Bath Rugby Club, and a current season-ticket holder. He raised the £1.6 million for the Teacher's Stand. He is also founder of the Bath Schools' Cricket Foundation, a former deputy chairman of ATA, the campaign to bring trams back to Avon, and a former councillor in Bath.