A deal to sell Uppingham Bowls Club has been thrown up in the air again, and instead the club could have the building gifted as the town council seeks to sort out an 'absolute muddle'. 

In January, a proposal by Uppingham Town Council to loan the bowls club a mortgage of £51,000 to buy the building on Tod's Piece off Gainsborough Road, was scrapped as the legal paperwork was wrong and could have meant the club acquiring the valuable land as well. 

Now after going back to the drawing board the town council is instead proposing to transfer over the building for free and just charge a £500 annual land lease rent.  

The council will discuss the proposal at its full council meeting on Wednesday evening (March 5), with final approval at a later date. 

There has been ongoing difficulties for Uppingham Town Council to sell the bowls club (Photo: Love Uppingham)

Town council chairman David Ainslie said: "It has been an absolute muddle. We have been working on a solution. 

"We are never going to sell them the piece of land that the club sits on. What we want to achieve is that we get their building back to them." 

He said the reason the previous legal agreement that had been drafted by a solicitor employed by the council was not signed, was because 'it was wrong'. 

The saga started more than a decade ago when the building was transferred wrongly into the ownership of the council, after being built by the club. The council auditors then told the council that as it owned the building it needed to charge a commercial rent, so the council charged the bowls club £1,500 a year and then provided a grant back to the bowls club. 

The terms of the new legal proposal include the club maintaining the building and having a 25-year lease with a five-year break clause. The council would not have the right to terminate the lease and if the bowls club left it would remove the building. 

Also due to be discussed at Wednesday's meeting are the council taking over the emergency planning responsibility from Uppingham First. 

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READ MORE: Legal paperwork misrepresentation disrupts Uppingham Councils plans to sell Bowls Club

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