TNS owner Mike Harris ready for legal fight with Shropshire Council

Mike Harris, owner of the Oswestry-based football club The New Saints, has issued the warning amid the deepening row over a Shropshire Council grant.

The authority gave The New Saints FC (TNS) an £80,000 grant in 2012 to build a new stand for its participation in European competitions.

The council has said the money should have been paid back to local organisations in grants of £16,000 a year over five years – the criteria for which was to be approved by the Oswestry Economic Board

However, earlier this year the council announced an investigation after it was revealed just £10,000 of the grant had been paid back.

The authority has since said mistakes have been made in the attempts to recoup the money but that it is now trying to recover the full amount.

Peter Nutting, leader of the council described the situation as a “cock-up and not a conspiracy”.

Voluntary

Now TNS owner Mike Harris has insisted the obligation to pay out grants was voluntary.

He said: “The council legal team made it very clear any contributions from us must be voluntary.

“We have e-mails from officers telling us what we had to put in our application and it made it clear any repayments were completely voluntary.

“The application outlined the conditions we had to meet. All those have been met.

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“We had several meetings with the council and we have the minutes and we kept asking when the committee was being formed.

"The council said each time they would go away and form it – and every time they went away and we did not hear from them again, they never got back to us. We have the full meeting notes of every time our company met the council.

“I’m disgusted the way this has come out. They have decided to blacken our name.”

Goodwill gesture

Mr Harris said as a gesture of goodwill £10,000 was repaid, despite the authority not completing the conditions of agreement.

Shropshire Council has said it will try to recover the money but Mr Harris has warned that if it involves legal action he will ‘see the council in court’.

He has also called for a full apology to the club. He said: “If we don’t get an apology we will consider taking action against the council for defamation.

“Helen Harris has a significant financial reputation. Ian Williams, as chief operating officer, has a professional reputation. I have a professional reputation. This has caused us massive damage.

“People believe we are guilty of sharp practice. Ultimately we have paid back the money, albeit in a different way, and can demonstrate that – even though we did not have to. We have been working for the community. We can demonstrate paying that £64,000 down to the last button. We have about 50 live projects on the go.

“All these projects would have qualified under the scheme. The council has dug itself into a big hole and has kept on digging. Its own audit shows there has been no fraud, just bad practice. It has tried to blame predecessors.

“The council knows payments were voluntary. It told its staff to make the agreement voluntary. It’s quite clear.

“It stinks of incompetence by the council and it is trying to blacken our name to hide behind its own failings.”

Shropshire Council declined to comment on the issue.