Portman Road has been declared an Asset of Community Value (ACV) after a representation by the Ipswich Town Independent Supporters Trust to Ipswich Borough Council.

ACV designation is a product of recent legislation — the Localism Act 2011 and the Assets of Community Value (England) Regulations 2012 — and, in footballing terms, means that if a ground’s owners decide they want to sell up, they should initially offer fan groups or other community bodies the first opportunity to make an offer for it.

According to Supporters Direct, the umbrella organisation which provides support and assistance for supporters trusts, there have been at least 54 occasions when clubs have been separated from the ownership of their grounds in the last 20 years and usually this has "not resulted in positive outcomes" for those clubs.

Amongst the grounds already labelled ACVs are Old Trafford, Anfield, Oxford United’s Kassam Stadium and Nuneaton Town’s Liberty Way.

Colin Kreidewolf, the secretary of Ipswich Town Ist, said: “Supporters trusts at Liverpool, Manchester United and Oxford United have recently been successful in having their clubs' stadia recognised as ACVs, reflecting the value of those grounds to their respective local communities.

“Our view is that Portman Road is just as important to the people of Ipswich, and to Ipswich Town supporters generally, as Anfield is to the people of Liverpool.

“We’re delighted that the Borough Council agree — this is a fitting way to mark the 125th anniversary of Ipswich Town’s move to Portman Road on 1st October 1888.”

While Town own Portman Road's stands and other buildings, IBC own the land with the Blues having signed a lease on the 8½ acre site in August 2001, the term lasting for 125 years from June 1969, the date of the start of an earlier agreement.

In 2011, former chief executive Simon Clegg told TWTD that the club was keen to gain the ground's freehold, having had a bid believed to be in the region of £1 million rebuffed.

Councillor David Ellesmere, leader of IBC, says his organisation has not considered selling the ground and backs the ACV listing in order to protect it for the future: “The current council administration has no intention of selling Portman Road.

“We are very happy to support listing Portman Road as an Asset of Community Value to give supporters the reassurance they need that ITFC will remain in the heart of Ipswich.”

But while the current council has no plans to sell, Ipswich MP Ben Gummer recently suggested that off-loading Portman Road could be a way for IBC to raise some cash and future council administrations might feel the same.

The ACV listing requires that IBC administrations of the future should consult the local community prior to a sale, allowing six months in which that community might raise the money in order to buy it.

Kreidewolf added: “We appreciate that the current IBC administration has no desire to sell Portman Road, and are pleased to see it remaining in public ownership.

“Having ACV status means that any future administration at the council wouldn’t be able to change that situation without involving supporters and local people.

“It helps to safeguard the future of Portman Road as a part of the Ipswich community. We hope that the current owner of Ipswich Town will also recognise this as a positive move for the football club.”

Tom Hall, head of England at Supporters Direct, said: “Ipswich Town Ist should be congratulated in their work to make sure that Portman Road takes its place alongside Old Trafford and Anfield, and the first two, Oxford United and Nuneaton Town, in having stadia successfully listed.

“We are seeing this trend escalate and many more applications are being lodged from across the pyramid.

“This and all other successful listings are demonstrating that our view that clubs and their stadia should be seen as community assets and not simply as part of an investment portfolio is being widely accepted.”

Photo: Action Images

BrettenhamBlue added 05:53 - Sep 3 Shame that we can't buy the freehold for the stadium. Must mean the local council want to keep those monthly payments coming in rather than supporting the club and selling it for one lump sum.
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itfcjoe added 07:14 - Sep 3 @pauljewellisagod Or the council want to keep their hands on the ground to prevent a situation that has happened to Brighton, Palace, Coventry etc over the years. The rent is very low, and there's no benefit for fans to see the club owning the ground.
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Mark added 07:35 - Sep 3 That's good news and well done to Ipswich Town IST. It is very important to keep Portman Road safe from any potential rogue future owners who may want to sell it off, and I'd like it to be forever safeguarded by the Council. Imagine seeing the "Your new supermarket opens here" signs!
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MJallday added 08:43 - Sep 3 heres an idea. if IBC own the ground, tell them they have to pay to maintain it to the standard required. give them the bill for the groundsmen, and see how long it is before they want to sell it back to us :)
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BillBlue added 09:30 - Sep 3 This is extremely good news. Portman Road has always been an assett to Ipswich and it is good to see it recognised as such. Much more important too to keep Evans greedy hands off it because I for one was horrified when I heard Clegg say they were trying to buy the freehold. When Evans has had enough (if ever) it will give the likes of us supporters (the ordinary people) the opportunity of putting the club back on its feet as a footballing club with it no longer being used as a leading loss maker.

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linhdi added 10:02 - Sep 3 Since there is already a restricted covenant over the site (meaning that it has to be used for sporting purposes), this is really just about publicity. The site is, of course, owned by the council, not by the football club, so it's the council's own hands that are being (very loosely) tied. I'm 100% in favour of ITFC remaining at Portman Road for ever and a day, but I don't think the ACV makes that any more or less likely.

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sotd78 added 13:17 - Sep 3 This is a critically important protection for the fans of ITFC. It protects the supporters from having the ground sold-out from underneath them without any say-so. It does not prevent ME or any later owner from taking the "franchise" elsewhere...but would prevent us becoming Coventry, Wimbledon, Brighton etc. without at the least a chance to fight-back
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olimar added 15:59 - Sep 3 The covenant is felt to be quite a loose protection, that can be overturned if there is enough pressure i.e. if ownership was with someone who was able to put pressure on....
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chumley54 added 16:40 - Sep 3 Possibly not the place to whine, but I am so b****y annoyed that I need to get this off my chestRIGHT NOW! I bought a match ticket for my wife for the Leeds game, £32...what a rip off...but that's not my issue, although it could be. When I booked it online the nearest seat to me was 2 rows in front and ten seats to the left. However, where I sit in the co-op stand there have been several empty seats around me, including 2 in front of me that have been unoccupied for the whole of last season and also so far this season. When I asked the charming James in the ticket office why these were not available as they clearly never get used, he very rudely said" please don't question what I am saying, they are not available". Very offhand attitude to a loyal fan who has spent bloody thousands watching town over the last 50 years, and no attempt to explain why they were never used. Such a bad attitude, downright bloody rude. No wonder attendances are dropping, what use are empty seats even if they are paid for? I suspect they are either corporate ones for people who can't be bothered, or maybe bought as cheap child seats, but either way it sucks, and it would be nice if ticket office staff learnt some manners. End of whinge, but a response would be nice although I won't hold my breath.

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RegencyBlue added 19:12 - Sep 3 Not sure how much protection it offers in reality but cannot be a bad thing!
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HARRY10 added 20:55 - Sep 3 It is more a sign that some don't fully trust Marcus Evans and are taking what steps are possible to protect THEIR club's interest. As to the some of 'our' fans supporting the idea that the council sells the ground, that is rather worrying. Maybe they could tell us who now owns Playford Road - an offshore Guernsey company, that's who.
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linhdi added 22:22 - Sep 3 The ACV is no more of a "protection" than the existing covenant (yes, covenants can be bought out). If the council decide to sell they can do so, and have a duty to council taxpayers to achieve the highest price - there is no preferred bidder status to anyone so far as I understand, just a moratorium for 6 months to give time for a rival bid for the asset - which is a piece of land, not a football club. [If Evans were able to buy the freehold of Portman Road from the council at a less-than-commercial / arms length price, then that has all kinds of other implications for the council of course). ACV was invented to enable communities to run pubs and secure playing fields, not for football clubs. It might have some impact where the owner of the club is also the owner of the ground, but that is not the case at ITFC. For now Evans as owner has a decent stadium at a reasonable rent, but if he decided to take the club elsewhere (let's assume within 5 miles...) into a development where he could gain from enabling developments such as retail and residential, then the ACV makes diddly squat difference.

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RetroBlue added 22:41 - Sep 3 Without. Marcus Evans' money buying our debt from Norwich union , this Club would have been dead and buried over 5yrs ago. Evans owns the Club, he can continue to support it ( as he does). Or sell it on. But ITFC is still a going concern , but like 99.9 % of all other clubs we are in debt. Football is in a bad place and recent £85m transfer fees and £350k per WEEK to a footballer are the main reasons the game is going down the pan. At least ME hasn't insisted on Town changing the colour of its shirts and we are owned by a UK organisation. We could be in a far worse position tthan we are now. If Evans wasn't serious about the fortunes of ITFC I doubt we'd have MM as manager and on a £1m bonus to keep us up last season. Get behind the owner, the club, the manager and the players or sod off up the road to the plastic clubs not too far away from Ipswich !

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Bown added 00:20 - Sep 4 lets get billy sharp on loan or ebanks-blake on a free agent
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not_a_witty_name added 21:49 - Sep 5 I wouldn't trust the council at all. Ipwich had a huge asset in the airport and the council couldn't wait to kick off Suckling and sell it off for housing.
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ElephantintheRoom added 08:46 - Sep 7 Seems a tad pointless aand essentially hot air PR for both sides of this non-story. The council owns the ground which has restrictions on its use. They have already turned the asset strippers down when they tried to buy it. I dont recall much complaint from 'supporters' or publicity seekers when the asset strippers hoovered up the training ground and winged it offshore. The problem is more that when the ground was redeveloped in the good old days they didnt turn the pitch around so that the practice pitch could become part of the stadium. That was a big opportunity missed when the West Stand was ruinously redeveloped. The club eventually recovered from that self-imposed break-up of Robson's last side - but there is no way back from making the club insolvent to create a few thousand empty seats at either end of the ground.

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