SWINDON Town chief executive Mark Devlin has promised the club will never be late with its monthly rent so long as he is at the County Ground.

His promise came after councillors unanimously agreed to end the club's lease on the ground if they are more than 14 days late with their monthly rent, leaving the town's football team with nowhere to play.

At Thursday's full council meeting councillors agreed to "pull the plug" if the club did not continue to pay its £14,500 monthly rent.

The decision follows a long history of the club not honouring its financial commitments.

In May, it was reported how councillors were angered by the way the authority appeared to be sidelined at a crucial creditors' meeting at which the club was saved from liquidation.

The original agreement was for the council to be treated as a preferential creditor in drawing up a Company Voluntary Arrangement.

That meant it was to receive an immediate one-off sum of £130,000 as part-payment of the rent and rates for the lease of the County Ground, on top of its share of a five-year payment of £375,000 to all unsecured creditors.

But a last minute adjustment to the CVA before the meeting meant the council would be treated like any other creditor and will receive less than £100,000 of the £415,000 owed, spread over the next five years. The remaining £315,000 of taxpayers' money has had to be written off.

Mr Devlin, who took on his role in June, said: "I can't make excuses for what has happened in the past under former administrations.

"There are a fair few people we need to pay and the council is at the top of that list, but we have paid our rent promptly for the past two months and we intend to honour our agreement in the coming months.

"I fully understand the council's position and we intend to be good tenants and pay the money on time because they have been let down in the past. I certainly don't want to let the situation get like this again."

Conservative group deputy leader, Ian Dobie (Haydon Wick), said: "For a long time this council has been supportive of the football club and they have stuck their fingers up at us. Personally I was willing to go down to the County Ground and lock the gates up because they have made promises more than once before and not kept them.

"The message is simple if they don't pay up then we will close the gates."

Kevin Small (Lab, Western) added: "The town would be a worse place without a professional football club, but we have to draw the line somewhere."