It was to do with the council buying the ground, extending the lease and promising investment into the infrastructure. https://www.barnsleychronicle.com/a...buys-all-of-oakwell-with-30-year-lease-agreed
Steve Houghton did stress repeatedly at the time that nothing would happen overnight. He stressed it often enough that it screamed to me that we'd not see any sort of improvements in the near future.
Given the state of Local Government finances in general, then Steve Houghton's pronouncement was to be expected.