THE Victoria Ground, the district council-owned home of Bromsgrove Rovers since 1910, could command a commercial rent of anything over £15,000 a year.

That's the figure the council is using as a basis to charge the club rent if it agrees to offer it a ten-year lease on the land in Birmingham Road.

However, whatever figure the rent is fixed at, the council will give it back to the club in the form of an annual grant.

Currently the club has a seven-year lease for which it pays a peppercorn rent, but for terms over seven years the council has to charge the going rate.

As we reported on our front page last week, the district council's executive cabinet is set today (Wednesday) to discuss, behind closed doors, granting Rovers an extended lease.

This is at the request of Rover's ambitious chairman Tom Herbert, who claims the lease is essential for the club's long-term survival.

If the cabinet agrees this could have the effect of breathing new economic life into Rovers.

Mr Herbert has set himself the goal of taking the Green's into the Football League. He says without a longer lease the club has no chance of obtaining grants from the Football League to upgrade the ground and improve facilities, such as new floodlights to enable the club to progress higher.

In a confidential report to the cabinet, officers point out that a new lease would not allow the land to be used for other purposes unless specific clauses are included.

The Victoria Ground has twice in recent years been linked to development schemes.

The latest was in 2003 when a bitter row erupted after the council gave a faceless development company a year to draw up a scheme for the ground. It failed to materialise.

No-one from the council was available for comment.