TWTD understands that Town have resolved their long-running dispute with Ipswich Borough Council regarding £654,702 in back rent owed on the land on which the Portman Road stadium stands. The agreement reached will see the Blues pay the cash over a period of six years, two years longer than had been proposed by IBC last October.
In March 2011, it was revealed that the annual rent on the land had jumped by 643% from £15,000 to £111,500 backdated to 2004, the council having initially targeted a rise to £250,000.
While Town had paid the new sum since the rent review was carried out in 2010, the club had dug its heels in regarding the additional £654,702 owed from the period back to 2004 when the rent review was initially due. An independent arbitrator had set the new figure, a process which cost the Blues £98,500.
At a council executive meeting in October, Town chief executive Simon Clegg put the club’s case, arguing that IBC’s former chief executive James Hehir, who died in November 2009, had made a verbal agreement regarding the issue of the back rent with club owner Marcus Evans. However, current IBC chief executive Russell Williams said he could find no evidence of such an arrangement.
Talks between the two parties have continued since then and we understand an agreement has now been reached.