Dear Roger,

I am Secretary of the Halton Castle Bowling Club (HCBC) who played at the green adjacent to the Halton Castle Pub along with Castle Lane Bowling Club (CLBC) until it was sold to developers in August 2016 when there was an agreement between the brewery Marston’s and the developers that the clubs could remain at the green until the end of the season in September.

The developers GM2 Ltd offered to build the bowling clubs a new green on land suitable to the clubs or provide a monetary equivalent as compensation.

In October 2017, the developers formalised this and produced a document called their 'Heads of Terms' which set out what they will provide regarding the green or compensation to the two clubs that played there; this document was signed by the clubs on 24-10-17 and by the developer on 25-10-17. The document had a suggested time frame of 24 months although this was not rigid.

Over the years I have had many meetings with the developer and exchanged many emails and they have always stated that GM2's priority was to build a bowling green but last year in September the communication between us stopped, no replies to emails, no replies to text messages and no answer to phone calls.

After looking for a location to build a bowling green since 2016 and having appeals for suitable locations published in the local papers, last year in August we got the offer of leasing some land in Westhead that was suitable to both clubs for a bowling green and in early October 2019 I advised the developer of this (no reply was received) and in December 2019 I sent GM2 a copy of the land registry location of where the land is and what both clubs had agreed to be provided there. I sent this documentation to their business addresses in Bootle and Leicester and via email to the developer to date I have had no response.

In January 2020 I became aware that a new developer had applied for planning permission to build on the site of the Halton Castle and after contacting the agent acting for them they advised me that they had purchased the site from the original developers GM2 and they were not aware of any agreement between them and the bowling club.

The Halton Castle bowling club feel let down by the developer who have reneged on their agreement,

Yours,

Eric Barklem,

Secretary, Halton Castle Bowling Club.