THE future of one of the borough's most iconic sports grounds and social clubs remains in significant doubt as it has once more been returned to the property market – this time with a sales tag of two million.

And the sales brochure comes with a hint from residential property experts that the 'planning view is that 10-12 acres may be developable'.

The Pegasus Club in Corringham was formerly the social club for workers at the Mobile oil refinery at Coryton and passed through a change of ownerships as the refinery was transferred to BP and the bought up by Petroplus – which went bust.

The club and 23 acres of sportsground which includes sports pitches and a fishing lake, was put on the market by PetroPlus liquidators Price Waterhouse Cooper. East Thurrock United were among the bidders and tabled a bid of £1.1 million to buy the Peg, which was eventually bought by a group of Malaysian businessmen for an undisclosed sum. They initially boasted of plans to make the site into a Premier League standard football centre.

Those plans failed to materialise and the club gradually became more and more run down, with members and sports teams leaving, until it was closed down in late 2020.

The Malaysian conglomerate put the site back on the open market but though there were a number of expressions of interest, including another bid by East Thurrock United to buy the site as a new home for the club, nothing has materialised.

Rumours have been profligate about the future of the site, including that East Thurrock United's new owner, multi-millionaire businessman Alfie Best, had bought it but property and land sales specialists Savills, who are currently marketing the Peg, have confirmed it remains on sale and no deal has been done. They say all bids are welcome.

Savills are promoting the site with a guide price of £2 million.

Meanwhile, an application by a new limited company called East Thurrock United 2020 Ltd for a certificate of lawfulness for its existing Rookery Hill ground remains unresolved, despite being lodged with Thurrock Council in May last year.

The application seeks recognition that the club has used part of its land as caravan site for a period in excess of ten years. If granted, it would allow the site to be further developed with more mobile homes without need of a formal planning application – though part of the land is in a conservation area, which has planning restrictions.

East Thurrock United FC continues to be run under the auspices of its longstanding limited company, East Thurrock United 2009 Ltd, which has just two directors including Dominque Bennett, daughter of the club's late owner Bennie Bennett. The company is recognised by the Isthmian Football League and FA as having the controlling interest in the current football club.

East Thurrock United 2020 Ltd, features the presence of the charismatic Mr Best who is described at Companies House as the person with significant control. Miss Bennett resigned as a director of that company in 2020.

When he took over at East Thurrock, Mr Best spoke of his vision for the club which included expanding its community interests and youth set up, building a new community accessible ground and he talked of taking the Rocks into the Football League.

Last week the Rocks' general manager Phil Crowe, reflecting on the on-field problems of the team which is fighting a relegation battle, issued a rallying call to supporters in which he touched on the new ground, responding to a question 'is there a new ground' by saying: "Not really, as most people know there is a site locally that is being discussed, I don't like talking about things until they are 100% going to happen, but let's just say as soon as we have some news you will be the first to know."

Mr Crowe's interview on the club's website can be read in full via this link.