Tranmere Rovers Trust

Application for Prenton Park to be registered as Community Asset

The Tranmere Rovers Supporters Trust has submitted an application to Wirral Borough Council to register Prenton Park as an Asset of Community Value.

If successful, any attempt to sell Prenton Park by a future owner would immediately be subject to a six-month moratorium during which the community has time to raise the necessary capital for a rival purchase.

The Trust has taken this step in a bid to safeguard the long-term future of Prenton Park and Tranmere Rovers.  Several clubs across the country have fallen into severe financial difficulties after their owners transferred the ownership of their ground away from the club and into a holding company, which then charged the club rent.

Chairman Ben Harrison said: "The Trust wants to take every step possible to ensure that Prenton Park will remain in Tranmere Rovers' ownership.  Current owner Peter Johnson has the club's best interests at heart, but he has long expressed a wish to sell the club and with so much uncertainty about the club's long-term future, we want to make sure that any future owner following Mr Johnson is unable to take Prenton Park away from Tranmere Rovers.

"Such a move would be an absolute disaster and would set the club on the road to ruin."

Thanks to the Government’s Localism Act 2011, people living in England can request that a stadium, even if privately owned, can be listed as an Asset of Community Value.

A number of applications have already been submitted by other supporter groups.  Oxford United's Kassam Stadium became the first to be registered, and the likes of Old Trafford and Anfield have been proposed and applications are under consideration.