D-Day for leading Shropshire bowls club
The most important annual meeting in the proud history of one of Shropshire's leading bowls clubs takes place tonight – with a big dose of positive news on the agenda.
Ford hold their AGM at Ye Olde Cross Gates (7.30pm) – just across the road from the prized green they feared they would be losing.
But the club's 60 members will hear of a vital breakthrough in negotiations with landowner – the former Shrewsbury Town and Telford United manager who is landlord of the Cross Gates – who has applied for planning permission to build a motel on the site.
Ford chairman Andy Jones said: "Our sub-committee formed to find a way forward and have now met with Jake again and have reached a memorandum of understanding with him.
"It means the club will have the use of the green for at least three more years, regardless of whether he gets planning permission."
And Jones, who has bowled for Ford for 45 years, welcomed the breakthrough.
"It's a positive move for the club and will help us attract new players. It gives us more of a window than the extra one year we thought we would be getting on the green," he added.
Now he hopes the club, which boasts a team in the county's top Premier League, will finalise plans for 2013 and its short-term future at tonight's AGM.
