The Board of Banbury United 1996 Ltd and Banbury United Development Ltd, the holding and trading companies of the football club and Banbury United Supporters Club are pleased to confirm that they are in discussions to move the ownership of the club into a Community Benefit Society.

The Community Benefit Society (CBS) is a model that has been introduced by other clubs to give supporters ownership of clubs. It is an extension of a Supporters Trust and means a club is controlled by its members with an elected committee responsible for governance and major decision making.

Membership of a CBS is via an annual subscription. All members get the same voting rights and there is limited liability for individuals, usually £1. In addition and to help launch a new entity there is the opportunity to raise share capital via Community Shares. This is a popular and successful fund raiser for community schemes and is something that would be implemented to help get working capital for the club.

The Supporters Club are working closely with Supporters Direct, a national organisation, who have assisted a number of clubs from football and other sports to successfully implement community ownership. See www.supporters-direct.org for more details of their work.

The legal requirements to change the existing club structure into a CBS will be undertaken with Supporters Direct’s guidance and assistance. A Management Board for the new entity will be elected by the members. The existing directors of the Board have indicated they will not stand for these positions but may continue to be involved in the club in other non-management board roles.

Whilst the club is currently solvent this is only due to the generous interest free loans provided by Board members and others in the past. These individuals are conscious of helping the new entity establish itself and discussions are in place to ensure that the debt to them is not a barrier to a successful launch and operation of the new entity.

Speaking about the news Club Chairman Kim Dumbleton said “The Board is really pleased with this development. It’s hard work keeping the club afloat and we recognise it is time for change. We can see great benefit to the club being owned by the fans and we have been impressed by how the Supporters Club has gone about this. We hope that an agreement can be successfully concluded to create a new exciting chapter in this great club”

Commenting on the discussions to date the Supporters Club Chairman Stephen Barlow said “The current Board have done a great job to keep the club going in challenging circumstances, particularly in recent years.

We are confident that a change to a supporters owned community club will be the springboard to rejuvenating Banbury United.

This club has great potential. To realise that it will require hard work. We are not going to get a saviour from outside with unlimited funds to invest. It is up to us - the club’s greatest asset, the fans, to make the club the way we want it to be. We want the club to engage with the community and for supporters and the community to feel engaged with their club and to want to contribute to the success of it.”

An open meeting to give more details of the proposal is scheduled to be held on 30 March, 7.30 pm at the football club. Supporters and anyone with an interest in the club are urged to attend.

Meanwhile due diligence is being undertaken by both parties and Supporters Club representatives have had very positive talks with potential sponsors and candidates from the local football and business community for key positions on the proposed new Management Board.