The club announced this morning that following a period of due diligence it has decided not to proceed with the acquisition of the Fleet Leisure Sports and Social Club in Gravesend.
Vice chairman Peter Varney said, “We have taken a decision that we believe is in the best interests of the football club. The FL pitches require major renovation work, levelling and a new irrigation and drainage system and the pitches would not be back in full use until September 2014 at the earliest.
“The five-a-side astroturf pitches have broken down also. Additionally the fabric of the buildings at Fleet Leisure is very poor and all areas require extensive refurbishment including a complete new roof on the main building. We also wanted to install a new full-size artificial pitch and it was clear there would be a lot of local opposition to that proposal.
“All in all, we were facing significant but unquantifiable costs if we went ahead with the purchase. We have a number of other more attractive options and will now be pursuing these with some vigour”.
