Fans urged to stay positive ahead of and to attend Save Peterborough Speedway Rally this weekend

Peterborough city councillor Julie Stevenson has urged campaigning fans to stay positive despite major developments at the East of England Arena.

The consortium bidding to buy the 53-year-old club are holding a city centre rally to support their campaign from noon on Saturday (November 18).

As part of this, Councillor Stevenson, who is an independent council representative for the Orton Waterville ward which includes the Showground, claims: “This is a David and Goliath fight, it’s very much the eleventh hour but it’s the eleventh hour, not the twelfth.

“People think that they can’t make a difference, that they don’t have any personal power, but they do. The important thing is there’s a spectacle, a red and black spectacle on Saturday.”

Some Panthers fans were shocked at the weekend when aerial photographs surfaced which showed that the track had been dug up, both the air fence and the stout wooden fence had disappeared and there was evidence of workers dismantling the entire pits area.

This was not a surprise to the six-man consortium that wants to buy the club from current owner Keith Chapman, and aim to be racing at the Showground in 2025.

Chapman, who bought the Panthers at the end of 2018, had been told to remove all traces of the racing circuit by the end of this month by Asset Earning Power Group (AEPG) Limited, agents acting for the East of England Agricultural Society, who own the showground site. Shale has already been transported from Peterborough to Chapman’s other Premiership club King’s Lynn.

Councillor Stevenson, a major player in the fight to keep the sport in the city isn’t a regular speedway fan, explained her involvement: “The Showground is in my ward and a couple of years ago Carl Johnson got in touch asked if I knew about the speedway being given notice to quit. He invited me along and I have been a couple of times, and my husband has been a couple of times on his own. The sport is great to watch and what struck me is its family friendly nature.

“It’s not only speedway that is suffering, I collect a particular kind of china and we have a group of collectors, about 200 of us, and we always meet at the Showground for the Antique Fairs.

“The Harvester at the Showground say their business has been destroyed by what has happened to the Showground. They have had a massive drop in their business.

“The next full council meeting is on the sixth of December and the point of the rally is to show the speedway fans to the public, to those people who don’t go to the speedway or even know about it.

“The antidote to despair is the company you keep. Come and hang around with positive people.

“I’m new to your speedway family, but I’m not new to campaigning. I’ve been doing it for 30 years. can’t see into the future on this one, but I do know that uniting together positively will give you the best possible chance of achieving your goals, much like a team sport.”

Among the speakers in support at the Rally will be the Mayor of Peterborough, Nick Sandford, and Andrew Pakes, the Labour parliamentary candidate for Peterborough, who will fight the Peterborough constituency seat at the next General Election as well as Councillor Stevenson and a representative from the consortium.

Consortium spokesman Carl Johnson, a former rider, team manager and co-promoter, added: “The air fence and the fence itself needed replacing, we already knew that the air fence needed replacing because of its age and major work was needed on the wooden fence which has been there since speedway started in 1970.

“It is nothing we didn’t expect and we were prepared for that, so nothing has changed in that respect. We will continue to fight against AEPG getting planning permission for what they want to do and our goal is to have speedway at the Showground in 2025.”

The rally, in Cathedral Square will include a Peterborough Needs Speedway marquee with a display of bikes, and the speeches from the steps of the Guildhall are expected to get under way around 13.30.