FOOTBALL CLUB AND RESIDENTS: THE FACTS - MIDDY LETTERS

Frank Milligan is at it again. After Alan Fowler's excellent letter the previous week, Mr Milligan has issued a response. He prefaces his response with a reference to yours truly, and says that Mr Fowler, like me, needs to get his facts straight.

The thing which enraged Frank Milligan the most in his response to me was that I should dare suggest that Bedelands Farm Residents Association were in any way organizing opposition to the football club. As proof, he demanded that I provide letters signed by the association.

In this weeks Middy, Frank Milligan signs himself Chairperson, Bedelands Farm Residents Association. In doing so, he provides the evidence.

Alan Fowler informed us of Mr Milligan's chippy nature, and how he had confiscated balls from the football club. Well, Mr Milligan admits to it, but says that he charged the football club half-price for their return. Well, I don't know about you, but if my neighbour charged me half-price for the return of my property which had somehow found its way into their garden, I would think it an absolute nerve; whether or not the proceeds raised went to "local charities".

He claims that the balls caused damage to "people and property". People? Am I supposed to believe that some people living in the disabled estate are there because of a stray ball?

Then he complains that the football club only applied for retrospective planning permission after being approached by the council. And whose complaints do we think they were acting on? He omitted to mention Mr Fowler pointed out that Tim Wickham used to phone the council if the lights were still on, just minutes after the moment they should have been switched off.

Retrospective planning permission is something people apply for when they presume that their alterations are uncontroversial and then find objections: just witness Councillor David Shevels' treehouse-of-horror from the beginning of the year.

We know who the complainers are. It is always the same names who appear in the paper: Tim Wickham, Frank Milligan and Councillor Gill Balsdon. Back in November 2004 Gill Balsdon wrote to the Middy, saying how local residents would prefer housing to a football club. She has said of Burgess Hill FC that they should move, although she knows not of a suitable site; making them sound more like an illegal travellers encampment than a football club.

All of this is irrelevant to what was my question, whether or not these noisy individuals truly represent the views of Leylands Ward. One is chairperson of Bedelands Residents Association, one is chairman of the Action Committee and the other is both town and district councillor. Do they speak for the consensus in the ward or are they speaking only for themselves? I speak only for myself. I have no dealings with the football club, only I sympathise with people enjoying their harmless pastimes and hate bullies.

I notice that the plan to replace the football club with housing was quietly withdrawn by the council. Perhaps local residents are alarmed by the consequences of the activities of those amongst them and have had a quiet word? For more housing is clearly the future for the site if the club goes. It won't be turned into green meadows.

Frank Milligan says that the football club "carried out various works which did disrupt the local community living within the vicinity of the club." Not half as much as the building of Councillor Balsdon's housing estate would.

Finally, Frank Milligan boasts of having done work for the football club, when relations were somewhat warmer, "a lot" although not all "of it for free." He says "We wish the club every success." Who's he trying to kid? His gang have got the club fined, so that it has been near bankrupted and close to wound-up in the courts.

I wondered why he and Tim Wickham had not moved away, if they find it such an ordeal living close to the club. I don't know whether or not they are owner-occupiers but, if they are, I remember that it is now law that any seller must declare any ongoing disagreements or disputes with their neighbours to a potential purchaser. I see a problem here.

Way back, when I first criticized Tim Wickham, it was in response to his complaints in the Middy that people kept on criticizing his negative involvement in the football club, that he felt unappreciated. "I do a lot for the community," he said, modestly.

The question still remains, do these people in authority properly speak for the views of the people they claim to represent?

They like to make themselves out to be the wronged party, yet have managed to get the club taken to court and fined; Councillor Balsdon having the nerve to say that the prosecution also cost the council money. I read in the paper that the club offered to take interested parties to see an installation of lights in Bromley they propose to use to keep the peace, yet no-one took them up on their offer. Who's the unreasonable party now?

Is it really only 18 months since About Town magazine made the club its front page leading article, and inside praised the improvements made to the club?