After challenging negotiations, a 99-year lease of The Walks ground has been agreed between King's Lynn Town Football Club and the Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk.

Eastern Daily Press: The Walks Stadium, Tennyson Road, King's Lynn. Home of King's Lynn Town Football Club.The Walks Stadium, Tennyson Road, King's Lynn. Home of King's Lynn Town Football Club. (Image: Archant © 2011)

Club chairman Stephen Cleeve discussed the agreement in an interview on King's Lynn Town TV's YouTube channel and said: 'It's taken me a year and a half of pulling my hair out. The council has been great and we've finally got there in the end.

'I'm pleased that we've managed to work together to get to a successful conclusion.'

Before the agreement was reached, the club had 17 years left of a 25-year lease.

Mr Cleeve said: 'I wanted to extend that, and not just extend it, but protect the football club because the football club is bigger than any one person. 'I wanted to make sure it was in a safe place,'

As part of the agreement, Mr Cleeve explained that the council previously had a 'rent review' of The Walks every five years but from now on the base rate will go up by Consumer Price Index and that takes away the unknown factor of the rent reviews.

The car park at The Walks added to the complexity of the deal.

Mr Cleeve said: 'The council are going to put their own deal together and my guess is that they will put meters in which run for two to four hours free of charge and then no longer can you park, which is great because it needs clearing out as there's a lot of people who park long-term.

'What I put in there is a clause, that whilst the council run the car park they will get all the revenue from it we will get it back on match days. If we get promoted once and we need to make changes to the ground and need access to the car park we get that and if we get promoted twice we are able to cancel the car park deal and have it back in our control.'

The 99-year lease began on September 27, 2018.