An open letter to the leader of the Peterborough City Council

Dear Councillor Cereste

I am writing on behalf of PISA 2000 – the independent supporters association of Peterborough United.

We consider Peterborough United to be one of the foremost ambassadors for the city of Peterborough and a successful football club is a prime catalyst in the creation of vibrant town or city. However, we are disappointed to report that the membership of PISA is extremely concerned about the lack of progress regarding the provision of a ground for the football team.

As one our political representatives within the city, PISA 2000 would like you to respond to several questions relating to the club and the ground:

Do you feel that the Chief Executive along with the then leader of Peterborough City Council, Cllr Franklin, was right not to enforce the requirement for a written offer to be made when the London Road ground was sold to Peterborough United Holdings Ltd. (PUHL)?

Do you feel that the Chief Executive and Cllr Franklin were right to dispense with the required six month notice period when the London Road ground was sold to PUHL?

Do you feel that the sale of the London Road ground, one of the city's premium assets, should have been subjected to a vote within the council?

A conservative estimate would place the value of the ground at several million pounds at the time of sale, although according to reports it was sold to PUHL at the substantially lower price £760,000. Do you feel that the Chief Executive and Cllr Franklin ensured the best deal for the tax payers of Peterborough at that time?

Would you support a compulsory purchase order to return the London Road ground to the people of Peterborough?Assuming that negotiations with PUHL are not able to complete, where would your favoured location for a new ground be?

Would you support a motion within council that would ensure a commitment to fixed start date for the work to begin on a new stadium, irrespective of the progress of finding a site at the time of that motion?

Whilst the membership of PISA is not politicised per se, it is an active group with the numbers to make an impact on the local political scene. There are no plans to put forward single issue candidates for local elections, or indeed to actively campaign against councillors that we feel are obstructing the progress of Peterborough United, however, we cannot rule these actions out in the future.

We will make the answers to the questions available to our members and possibly within the wider media. We appreciate the workload of a councillor, but would like to emphasise the importance of this matter to the community that you represent and would urge you to answer the questions as soon as possible. If you are unable to answer the questions, we would be left with no alternative other than to assume that you would prefer to ignore the concerns of the Posh supporting tax payers and would rather the city was not able to offer this facility to its population.

We would also remind you of your pledge when you took over leadership of the council: "We need proper leadership which is focused on what needs to be done in the city, while being responsive to what our electorate says we need."

Thank you again for your time and we look forward to hearing from you

Adi Mowles
Chairman
PISA 2000