QC backs council on Inver Park dealings

However, protagonists on either side of the row over the future of the football ground fear that it will not be resolved outside a court room.

A QC who specialises in company law met elected members and officers behind closed doors on Monday night for a briefing on the council's past contacts with Larne Football Club and the local authority's contract to sell the ground to Tesco for 5.1 million, subject to vacant possession.

Read the full story exclusively in this week's Larne Times. The advice we received was unambiguous.

“My hope is that now we can see this come to a resolution that will be for the good of the the football club and the borough as a whole.”

Cllr Martin Wilson, chairman of Larne Borough Sports Forum, said: “There needs to be closure to this whole saga. We in the council and the sports represented on the forum will be keen to see a new stadium built, on whatever site, so that all the people of Larne can make use of it and that would include the football club.”

Cllr Brian Dunn, who has on occasion been a lone voice questioning the legal advice received by the council in the past, said: “The council has received the QC’s opinion and the only way you can test that opinion is by going to court and I think that ultimately that is what will happen.”

He warned: “It could go on and on, needlessly taking money out of the football club and the people of Larne losing out.”

Chairman of the Larne FC board, Archie Smyth, pledged: “We will never relinquish the lease.”

He said the limited company had never owned the lease and that its returns to Companies House in the past had always registered its assets as “nil”.

“So regardless of any advice the council has received, we are right back to square one,” said Mr Smyth.