Cabinet agreed on 2 November to give Southam United up to £250,000 to fit out the unused first floor of its clubhouse, which has no heating or toilets.

Southam United could get up to £250,000 from the district council to finish its clubhouse, more than a decade after the building went up. The first floor of the clubhouse at Bobby Hancocks Park has never been fitted out. It has no heating, no toilets, no kitchen and mostly bare block walls.

Stratford-on-Avon District Council’s Cabinet will decide on Monday 2 November at 10am. Officers recommend the grant, with conditions attached. The report to Cabinet is item 6 on the agenda.

Updated 7 November: the Cabinet agreed the grant of up to £250,000 on 2 November, subject to the conditions in the report, according to its draft minutes. It changed condition 6: the outgoing trustee’s retirement and the Southam Town Council clerk joining the committee must be confirmed, with the clerk and the three current committee members as the four trustees of Bobby Hancocks Park. Southam Town Council’s Cllr Angela John, its town clerk and ward member Cllr Padgham spoke at the meeting. The minutes note the club has one girls’ team. The decision can still be called in by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

Southam is about 20 miles east of Stratford-upon-Avon.

Why the upstairs matters

The first floor was designed for a bar and community use, to bring in the income that keeps the club going. The report says some work has been done upstairs, but the club still cannot use it.

A temporary bar now brings in some money. But the report says the function area “cannot be let for safeguarding/health and safety reasons”, because it cannot be secured separately and has no heating in the upstairs or toilet areas.

Finishing the job would cost about £350,000, by the council’s estimate. Grants the club can apply for are not expected to cover it all. The report puts the gap at around £250,000.

How the clubhouse was left unfinished

The ground came out of a 2013 planning application made jointly by the football club, Southam United Bowls Club and Bloor Homes. It swapped the old stadium and bowls facilities for new pitches, a clubhouse and 236 homes. The Planning Committee approved it on 6 August 2014. The clubhouse reached practical completion, but the first floor was never fitted out.

The report sets out a hard couple of years:

  • the senior team folded in February 2025, bottom of Hellenic League Division One
  • the company then running first team football was wound up and dissolved on 19 August 2025
  • a new volunteer committee took over, and inherited utility debts from the previous operation, which it is paying off
  • a final set of accounts for the latest year has not yet been produced

The club now runs as an unincorporated members’ club, entirely on volunteers. The council’s Playing Pitch Strategy, quoted in the report, counted 19 teams from under-5s to seniors, and about 150 players. It found demand for 10 more teams over the next three to five years. There is one affiliated girls’ team, plus regular girls-only sessions.

Southam Town Council has already given the club money. On 24 September it agreed to put its town clerk forward as one of the ground’s four trustees.

The conditions

The money would come from the council’s Business Rates Equalisation Reserve, which holds £9.8 million. It would be paid in stages, and only once the club has provided:

  • a business plan showing how the investment keeps the club going, plus completed accounts for the latest year
  • costed estimates for the work, including professional supervision
  • proof, from the title deeds, that the club has the right to occupy the land held by the trustees
  • a commitment to apply for every other grant it can, with help from Warwickshire CAVA

The club would also have to keep working with the Birmingham FA on a Club Development Review. The FA has agreed to support Southam through the review even though it is normally kept for three-star clubs; Southam is two-star. The grants named in the report include the Football Foundation’s clubhouse fund, the Howdens Game Changer programme, Biffa Award and the HS2 Community and Environment Fund.

If other grants bring in more than £100,000, the council’s share would go down to match. The only alternative put to Cabinet is to refuse.

What it means for you

If you play, coach or volunteer at the club, or want to hire a room in Southam, the decision on 2 November decides whether the upstairs becomes usable. The report says the club wants more girls’ teams, facilities for disabled players and wider community use of the building.

The meeting is in the Council Chamber at Elizabeth House, Church Street, and is webcast on the council’s YouTube channel. Under the council’s rules, requests to speak at a Monday meeting must reach committeemanagers@stratford-dc.gov.uk by midday on the Wednesday before, which for this meeting is today, 28 October.

The same Cabinet meeting also takes the council’s latest update on boosting housing land supply, which still stands at 2.43 years.