WITH the clock running down on the future for Hereford United, big money that could buy the club time is missing.

Herefordshire Council confirmed this week that it is “chasing solicitors” to find £100,000 apparently lodged with the former Hereford City Council as a bond during the transfer of the two leases on United’s Edgar Street ground in the 1990s.

United now have the leases back but the bond money the cash-strapped club could make a claim on can’t be traced.

Copies of Hereford City Council committee minutes from 1997 confirm that the city council – as landlord to United – agreed to the leases being assigned the BS Group subject to the £100,000 bond being deposited with the city council’s solicitor for work on the supporters club that was badly damaged by an arson attack in 1995 and only re-opened in 2011 through money found by United.

The money was to be held in an interest earning account in the joint names of the council, as landlord, and the BS Group, as assignee, with interest accruing to the latter.

BS Group could draw down on the sum on production of certificates from its city council approved architect or surveyor certifying the value of the work on the Supporters Club.

When the city council was taken over by the new Herefordshire Council in 1998 the sum should have passed across in the handover.

But Herefordshire Council can’t find the bond on its books.

“We have looked at our accounts from 1998 onwards to try and trace this bond and have been chasing solicitors in Bristol to identify where the account is currently held,” said David Powell, Herefordshire Council chief officer – financial and commercial.

United chairman David Keyte, pictured, said the bond had been discussed at board level but, in present circumstances, the club had to take the council’s word that the sum could not be traced.

United could make a claim on the bond having found around £300,000 to refurbish the Supporters Club itself.