I think that is stretching things a bit too far, looking at this afternoons meeting in a calmer mood, it becomes clear that the decision was never going to happen today. The leaked letter put that to bed. The original agenda had all the details exempted from the public eye. All that was to be seen was an application titled "Outline proposal to lease Council Land". - This was first noted on 15/12/2021* long before it came into the public eye. Had it remained so I fully expect that the decision would have been passed and we would now be moving towards planning.
As it transpired, the councillors were put on the spot, ignore the electorate or take a pause, agree a consultation period and reset. They went with the politically safe route. No big deal, nothing was going to happen without a public consultation but, it would have been easier with the lease details sorted first.
I came to this conclusion taking into account the absence of any petitioner from the club or any representative of the majority shareholders and the ease at which a solution was presented to the Cabinet (and passed without discussion)
I don't know any of this 100% but, I'm guessing that I'm not that far off the truth. The support is there amongst the council but they cannot be seen to "rubber stamp" a decision like this, no matter how much sense it makes - not me saying that, Cabinet member for finance and Corporate director - Commercial development, assets and investment for the County Council Steve Jorden made the recommendation to accept to the Cabinet.
*See here for detail:
Reference to Council agenda