I don't think that the owners of Southern Counties have any lack of money but are probably not prepared to invest any more in to a white elephant. I still think that the owners probably want to see a return for their investment, who wouldn't, and that this is probably the underlying reason for their proposal.
I did hear somewhere that Peter allegedly said that if SC were to close he would not have anywhere to practice and would have to give up!!! But I really cannot believe that to be honest, he can just nip off to the desert and shoot out there with his Arab mates. From a business point of view, if there's more money in solar panels than there is in shooting, well you can't really blame the owners of SC for wanting a load of solar panels, even though we shooters won't like it.
Unfortunately what you say is very true Les. If grounds can not be run profitably then they will close and eventually all that we will be left with are the small clubs owned and operated by their members.
Roger, I don't know if it's just me, but it almost seems as though member owned clubs seem to be a rare breed these days. In some ways it could be better to have clubs owned and run by the members, but I have no idea how many member owned clubs there actually are out there. The cost of starting and operating a club with such things as OT, OS, UT etc would be vast I would imagine!
We have a few in Kent Les but all Sporting ones. I don't know of any that would be able to afford to put in the trap disciplines with the possible exception of ABT and DTL where the traps could be used for sporting at a push.
Yes Graham , they may well want to do that. However we are not really short of sporting shoots in the South West in general. BUT...there is a distinct lack of good trap and skeet shooting down here. We would be losing what surely amounts to a world class ground, taking away all skeet and trap shooting from Dorset. So skeet and trap shooters would need to travel to other counties to shoot. Sporting is well catered for in most parts of the country, but the Olympic disciplines are not, yet we hear all this noise about wanting to bring on the future Olympic shooters and about the so called Olympic Legacy! Well since the last Olympics I have heard of at least two grounds who have shut down some form of Olympic layout, or may shut it down. If grounds are to help the future Olympic shooters, maybe the UK Olympic mob and the other quangos should come up with some cash to help ground owners to install and/or run such Olympic layouts!
I think the large scale units do have people to look after the things, but what they actually do and what the amount of labour is, well you guess is as good as mine mate!
Well it looks as though there is more there than meets the eye Ian. Maybe the owners looked what they make from shooting, looked at what could be made from solar panels and offset it all against the potential costs involved in a court case and thought...those solar panels look bloody good! You could be right about straw balers, little DTL clubs in muddy fields with a battery powered trap and five paving slabs to stand on and a little lad on the button. BUT...at least it would still be trap shooting! Who knows if it can be saved, only the owner by the look of it. It will be a very sad day for clay shooting if we were to lose such a ground.
As I've already said I think there's a lot more to it than that. I've just heard a rumour that the hotel is being sold off to one of the chains.
