What on earth does the ACV status have to do with anything? Home Park is being enhanced with the aim of generating greater social benefit for both club and community, this is exactly what ACV status aims to achieve. Protecting community assets like pubs from being purchased just to demolish them for development and instead allowing communities to purchase them to find ways of making them profitable whilst retaining the social benefits.
The value of Home Park is found in the football club, a chance for people of all ages and backgrounds to come together on match-day to support the same team, a team that represents the city of Plymouth which brings together the entire city on days like Wembley visits, promotion parades or visits from teams like Liverpool.
A development that enhances the football club's home by providing conferencing facilities to generate income for the club whilst providing a facility for businesses to use as well as residents for weddings or community groups for events, a development that aims to provide new and improved supporters areas such as bars and restaurants for supporters to come together on match-days and for the community to use through the week, a development that includes a brand new ice rink and gym to encourage the uptake of a variety of other sports in the city, a development that includes more seats in the ground itself to allow more people to benefit from the value generated by Home Park as an asset, a development that provides a hotel to encourage more people to visit the city, generate tourist income on a whole new side of the city, providing a facility to encourage more away fans to visit by providing a place to stay on the club's doorstep.
This development is what ACV is all about, protecting a community asset to allow it to progress and thrive in the modern world so that business wealth and community value can be generated alongside one-another. So that community assets can continue to generate value for their community whilst becoming equipped to generate the profits needed to keep them solvent. ACV is not a time bubble, pubs protected by them aren't standing still, the ACV doesn't stop them adding a B&B upstairs or a brand new restaurant kitchen in the back, it encourages these upgrades to keep these places running and although Home Park isn't about to close down it still needs greater commercial income to keep up with the modern game; to achieve this by providing facilities that can be used by everybody whilst maintaining those used solely by fans is a triumph.
As with any development somebody will inevitably benefit, in this instance it will be James Brent. I honestly don't see the problem with this, it'll be him that bears all the risk of the wider development not the club so he should benefit from their rewards. The club has neither the cash nor the will to build a hotel, gym, ice rink or office on the site so it's of no loss if JB gets there first. The club does stand to indirectly benefit from these things being on site, a hotel next door to our new conference facilities, a gym the club's players can use, restaurants and eateries that allow fans to make a day of going to Home Park. None of it is the club's but we benefit from facilities that ordinarily wouldn't be there. It seems completely farcical, bordering on Two Ronnie's sketch worthy for people to be arguing over a development because of a few car parking spaces when there is a massive park and ride facility in touching distance of the stadium.