Debt wrangle over nightclub's future

Sunday Sport owner David Sullivan claims his company Roldvale is owed £200,000 by the club's owners Paul Sampson and Carlos Rodriguez.

He lent Mr Sampson and Mr Rodriguez's company, Gold Leisure Ltd, around £200,000 to the buy the lease to Goldiggers from Allied Leisure in 1997 and spent £100,000 on fixtures and fittings.

The club, in Timber Street, closed six weeks ago after Gold Leisure ran up a debt of £47,000 in rent to the district council and attendances plummeted.

The council, which owns the building, does not want a nightclub on the site. It is hoping to change the use of the building, which opened as a cinema in Chippenham in 1936, before finding someone else to take it over.

But Mr Sullivan says if he cannot get the money he is owed from Gold Leisure, he will demand that whoever takes over the former club pays him the £100,000 still owed for the purchase of the lease and another £100,000 for the fixtures and fittings.

Otherwise he has threatened to keep control of the lease and says he will then be in a position to market the premises to whoever he wishes.

Gold Leisure Ltd is in discussion with its solicitors but is understood to be unable to pay the money it owes to Mr Sullivan or the council.

The district council recently turned down a bid from a consortium of Chippenham businessmen, trading under the name Pizzaz, to take over the premises and open it as a nightclub, sports bar and bistro.

Pizzaz said it was prepared to pay off Gold Leisure Ltd's debts and reach an agreement with Roldvale.

Mr Sullivan is fed up with the council and unhappy they turned down the bid from Pizzaz, said Ricardo Patrick, media liaison officer for Roldvale Ltd.

Mr Sampson said: I am disappointed the bid from Pizzaz was not accepted and am in discussion with my solicitor over where to go from here.

A council spokesman said it was looking for best value on the land.