Local sports clubs can be about much more than sport, and mean much more to a community than the team's fortunes on the playing field.

Southam United Football Club is a good example.

Like many similar clubs around the country, it brings people together in a shared love of football, cements friendships, teaches young people the value of developing skills and teamwork, and helps people of all ages and backgrounds stay active.

Like many similar clubs, it is run by a handful of dedicated volunteers and struggles to stay afloat financially.

Southam United has some additional challenges to overcome though.

It is right next door to HS2 for example, and persuading HS2 Ltd to help install a fence high enough to stop footballs landing in the construction zone took a lot longer than it should have.

There is one fundamental problem at Southam United however that I have been working with its hard-working management team and Southam Town Council to help solve, and it needs resolving for the club to have a secure future.

Southam United have a clubhouse facility which was built by the developers of the surrounding new housing, Bloor Homes, as part of the deal which involved the sale of their old ground for housing. It is less than 10 years old and if you looked at it from the outside, you would be impressed.

Downstairs, there are decent facilities for players and officials.

Upstairs however, is a function room that is not functional.

It should have a bar, a kitchen, its own toilets, but it is no more than a shell.

There is no heating and the wind whistles in through gaps in the windows, and this is more than an inconvenience.

That function room was designed to be the way the club gets income, to be spent on running the club.

Without it, the club lives hand to mouth and largely on the goodwill of a few volunteers. Worse still, this function room should be a real asset for the wider Southam community, providing the space (and the invaluable parking) for a range of uses from business gatherings to wedding receptions.

That was always the plan. A quick read of the original planning application makes it clear that those granting planning permission thought that what would be built would provide something the club and the community could use and which would benefit the town. What we have is unusable and provides no such benefit.

So what went wrong?

Frankly, it's hard to be sure.

The interactions and agreements between the developer, the club and Stratford-on-Avon District Council (as both planning authority and council responsible for leisure facilities in Southam) are unclear at this point, but I am more interested in what happens now than in what happened then.

I have been working with the club and the town council to keep the lights on at Southam United because it is a community asset, but it should be a greater asset. We now need the function room to be brought up to the standard required to be the community asset it was always meant to be.

If it is not, the club may not survive, its building will fulfil none of its potential to serve the wider community and its contribution to the provision of sporting facilities in the area will cease.

That is bad for all of us, whether we care about football or not.

There is work to be done to deliver what was promised. If the developer should do that work, it is the district council as planning authority that can tell them to.

If this needs a decision to invest public money in a facility that can deliver public outcomes, whether in leisure facilities or meeting space for the people of Southam, it is the district council's decision to make. I have been having these conversations with Stratford District Council officers for some time now, but the council's political leaders must decide to act, and soon.

The final whistle for Southam United may not be far away. It's time for the leadership of Stratford-on-Avon District Council to get on the pitch.