Ground sale in spotlight

THE sale of the Britannia Stadium will be examined in depth at a meeting of Stoke-on-Trent City Council's audit committee today.

It has been revealed that details of the sale of Stoke City's ground back to the club were kept from councillors.

Although members were told that the council's share in the stadium would be bought by the club for £4.5 million, they were not told that payments would be made in instalments. That meant the council missed out on £180,000 in interest.

Under the city council's constitution at the time, senior figures had no obligation to tell councillors anything.

An internal audit report has cleared officers and councillors of any wrong-doing. But the District Auditor is expected to criticise a system which saw councillors kept in the dark.

See tomorrow's Sentinel for a report from the meeting.