Thetownend.com

Hi guys,

Does anybody on here know or heard anything about the County Ground Re-development?. They had a board meeting about it a week last Thursday and nothing has been mentioned to my knowledge. I was hoping our board was not going to be like previous boards by keeping fans in the dark about important things. Anyone on here heard anything?, rumours on what they are doing?, cheers.

Any plans better involve rotating the pitch 180 degrees.

I know it was put on hold due to relegation but presumably there's still a lot of discussions to be had with SBC over the CG plans.

I don't think having a meeting and not explaining everything to everyone equates to keeping fans in the dark... seems to be more a case of there being ongoing negotiations and discussions with various bodies with no big steps being taken right now. I have every confidence that the board will let us know when something big happens, e.g. designs being chosen, contractors being enlisted, dates being set... I don't expect any of that to happen this season though with us in League Two.

Wouldn't that mean moving out though whilst it's redeveloped?

A 90 degree rotation might...

The lease is up soon isn't it

Might as well go the whole 360.

I hope they just build a wall outside creating the illusion of a new stadium

Woah, calm down there. That seems a bit too radical!  :headhurts:

It expires in 2013, assuming nothing has been negotiated yet

Yeah I've been done there...

Cheers Si. With that in mind i fully expect a announcment regarding redevelopment next year

Yeah you're probably right. I'd forgotten the lease was due to expire until you asked.

Whatever you do dont hold your breath,In 1990 they showed us what they wanted to do on the redevelopment,all that they have done is put a new lemon block in the pisser :smugfu:

With all due respect until recently the last 20+ years we have bee very poor tennants.The council have had every right in my opinion to be cautious of every one of our previous shady chairman and be reluctant to help.The current financial crisis ad the fact we have a decent board who do alot of good stuff for the community could see us be in a much better position this time round

I believe that early discussions have been had with the council and the town's MP's and they are very positive towards what the club want to do but it has got to work for the town as well as the football club, I have full faith in Watkins, Wray, Fitton etc to keep us in the loop when there is something worth saying.

There is so much potential at the CG especially with the council looking to redevelop their leisure centre's and the club interested in the CG extension now is probably the right time to strike a deal.

The council have to be seen to be getting the correct price for tax payers as well which I would expect to be a sticking point, as I would expect if the council want a lot of hard cash they are not going to get it but they would get money from all the spin off's the club brings to the town increased walk up, bigger crowds spending more in the town bigger away attendances again spending more in the town and perhaps there may end up a partnership agreement with some of the facilities built at the new CG

Wray did comment on RS that he was in and out of the board meeting due to it being held when the loan window closed so didn't take in a lot

SPORT: #Swindon Town Chief Executive Nick Watkins tells @BBCWiltshire that redevelopment of the County Ground could begin in a year. #stfc

Brilliant news.

We've heard similar rumblings before.

Fingers crossed it will happen.

Until I see the plans with everything signed off then I won't believe this will actually happen.

JW or NW mentioned a while back that if things went well they'd be starting work on the Town End next summer. Plenty of reason to be sceptical but positive signs at least.

Good to hear, hopefully it will happen

I can't believe people are coming out with the old "Oooh, I'll believe it when I see it" line. Things have moved on somewhat since Diamond Mike and his cronies thankfully slung their collective hooks. I am personally pretty sure this current lot mean business, as has been very effectively demonstrated in the last 12 months.

Why can't you believe it?

The current board have said similar hopeful ETA's and then BAM! relegation.

I think it's completely understandable to hold off excitement until the contractors roll in.

Just getting the plans on paper is a shitload more than the other lot did. Actually talking to the Council is a shitload more again. If this lot say it then I have no reason to disbelieve them. I'm quite happy to trust them.

I think the Town End re-development will be the most interesting aspect as it has the most potential for additional space that can be used to offset the cost of building.  I was looking through and found this booklet from Frank Whittle who are designing the new stands.

democracy.york.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=19763

you'll have to paste it into google i'm afraid....

first time poster blah blah blah

I salute your nonchalance RS.

I see nothing offensive and yet nothing super exciting from what they've designed so far.

That document is actually a very good read. Shows that some significant incomes can be generated that can essentially make the redevelopment self-funding.

Thing is also that the CG is perfectly located for those types of development.

Offices, hotels etc right next to the town center.

the problem is the lack of space around the North Stand and Bank restricts their potential for development in this manner, although there is some scope at the corner by the Town End for something to be done with the North Stand.

I suppose thats why you pay architects though...

What's an ETA?? ???

That aside, it's pretty obvious that the current board are taking the club forward and relegation was an unwelcome and surprising blip - but that's all it was. I am sure if their aim is to redevelop the ground then it will happen. It will take some time but will happen nonetheless.

People saying "I'll believe it when I see it" (or words to that effect), suggests to me that they think the board are saying this stuff about ground redevelopment just for the hell of it. Which they are clearly not. Unlike previous regimes, this lot clearly have the financial wherewithal and ability to get it done.

I don't think it's the board people are aiming it at, For me I wonder more about the stumbling blocks the council will no doubt throw at us.

ETA is an estimated time of arrival (which admittedly is probably the wrong term to use).

"see it to believe it" comments are not digs towards the board, we know what they're all about but the redevelopment subject is a long, drawn out one so I can understand cynicism from people.

 I'll believe it when I see it  :)

Said it before, but we have the potential to bring about one of the more exciting redevelopments in recent years.  Location is everything...and the County Ground is perfect in that respect.  We just need a decent firm of architects to make the most of the site.  And for the Council and the Club to agree mutually beneficial terms for a sale of the site to the Club.  The previous debacle/attempt at redevelopment by the Diamandis Crew focused attention on the importance (quite rightly) of the Swindon council tax payer being given value for money...so hopefully that lesson has been learned.

I said that but at the same time I don't think the board are saying it for the hell of it. A lot of fans will be weary when it comes to ground redevelopment or the mention of a new ground for us because of what has happened in the past. This board is different and in the past it's been the council who have provided a big stumbling block, so I think from my point of view it's more 'I'll see it when I believe it when I hear it from the councils side rather than from the current board'.

To buy the CG would cost a serious amount of money...and in a business sense not be worth it...just can't see it happening.

How much is the CG worth though?

I got the impression before that the Council valued it based on the potential of the site if it was fully redeveloped, which I guess would be £10m plus. I don't buy this argument as kicking the club out isn't really a viable option and it's dependent upon someone else (the club) taking a massive financial risk.

On the other hand, if you based the value on the current return the Council gets of about £200k a year rent then I guess you'd be looking at something like £4m to £5m.

I get that the Council can't sell it off cheaply for someone else to make a profit but I struggle to see how anyone would make that much money out of the club, especially if there is something to cover them if the club move to a new ground out of town and sell the land for housing. Plus football clubs are a special case due to the role they play in the community and the last year with PDC has been good for the town as a whole.

Page 12 has a ring of the DRS about it...

Calling me fat

No, just the size of a concourse...

Unfortunately the officers of SBC view STFC as a business/tenant like any other....the present political overlords main connection to STFC is an unhealthy desire to get into bed with a former Town chairman.

Surely hunt has shot himself in both feet with wifi and other failings.

In the current financial climate I can't believe the council would pooh pooh the idea without reason

The point is Batch, the decision makers, have proved themselves not to be figures motivated by civic altruism.

That's a fair point.  And I have no idea whether purchase of the freehold is in the Club's business plan either.  My thinking - and this is complete guesswork - is that the market value of the site is going to be adversely affected by a couple of factors.  Firstly, the Goddard family covenant.  I've never seen anything in writing, but a lot of people seem to think that this stipulates the site can only be used for leisure purposes...which, if true, would exclude other commercial interests from using the site, thus lowering the market value.  And secondly, the Broadgreen area is hardly the best looked after part of Swindon, so I would take any talk of a 'prime site' with a pinch of salt.

If the Club does buy, it would almost certainly need to take on some debt to finance it...and it would then depend whether the cost of servicing that debt would be any less than the cost of paying rent to the Council.  And there's a chance (again, no more than a hunch) that it might...so wouldn't rule out a purchase of the site, especially if the redevelopment plans are ambitious enough for the Club to want to own the site outright.

In his first 2 posts Red Sheldon gives us some interesting information and makes sense?  I call imposter!  He can't be part of the TEF with sensible posts like that, nobody has even called him a cunt yet?

The security on this site is getting worse, it's got to be Rikki Hunt, Mike Diawanker or Wee Willy Carson in disguise or something.

Welcome to the site RS!

It's too early in the day Reg to be reading words like this!

Very true.

Lets hope they've changed. Surely they can't keep failing to progress Swindon as a town.

The new retail development on the old college site seems a good idea, perhaps they are finally getting round to doing something for the good of the town. Plus, hopefully we are free from having shitty boards that constantly mess them around.

I think the only stumbling block we might encounter with the re-devlopemnt will be SBC, I have lots of confidence with this board, and the good things they have done with club.

I'll see it when I believe it.

It's OK

I'm sure he is well aware of the plans to have a moat, trebuchet and lasers incorporated within the plans, only it's such common knowledge he probably didn't think it necessary to mention anything

They could get around the Stratton bank space thing, by moving the pitch partly into the car park, so the new Stratton Bank stand would be further away from the houses.

Having said that, I like the CG as it is, so I hope it never happens

It is my mission in life to sprinkle my little pearls of wisdom and knowledge to my ever loving fans....

But going on from Nice Bloke's point about not moving the pitch down to increase the size of the bank,it set me thinking.  Just imagine 3 years in the future the first game of the season, we're in the championship ( well all three year plans have to work don't they).  The ground is now finished its a beautiful August day etc etc.   The lovely new Town End capacity 4-500, flash North Stand 7-8000, Don Rogers holds 5000 ( I think) and the Bank which might squeeze 3,000 in with a low roof on it.

The question is where do you put the away fans??  In the Championship you'd hope for 3,000 plus maybe 4-6 times a season , do you put them in the bank, which would generate loads of noise, put them in the Town end  to increase potential revenue.  Give them half of the North Stand, although the sides are far more popular with home fans than either of the ends.  Thoughts please..

Yes thats right I'm Nick Watkins and this is my lazy way of doing market research

Surely the Bank will be knocked down and they will start again, no messing about putting a roof on it. It's awful.

I think the height will be restricted because of the houses behind so they will probably knock it down but the roof will need to be quite low not to affect their light

Ref the covenant if the club purchased the ground from the council which I beleive is their preferred option and the council are open to the idea then they would be looking to buy out the covenant from the goddards estate.

Ref the height of the Bank, why not dig the pitch out and gain 'height' by going down?

I expect drainage would be a nightmare

It won't effect their light. The sun Shines from the South, which for those of you geographically challenged is behind their properties ie. from the coatewater end. Now if you had a house behind the Arkells stand you'd be well buggered if you intended to get a tan in your back garden nest pas?

I am geographically challenged, i haven't lived in swindon for about 27 years - even then it was as a five year old for three months.

More often than not I do not even live in the UK now, though when i am around i go to as many games as possible - 95% i would estimate.

I don't really know where Coate Water is in respect to each stand as i live 60 miles away, so from a personal perspective I would really appreciate some sort of explaination as to how external factors such as sunlight would/could effect those around the CG

Also as an aside, I live in France when I'm not at home so... it's 'n'est–ce pas'

The height of th SB is determined by the available footprint of the stand... If you look at the arial shots you will notice that in order gain the additional hieght you have to expand outwards and there physically isn't the space to do this... I heard some years ago that there were plans to buy the houses behind the bank as and when they became available but I'm not sure whether or not this has happened.  

If it has then the issue is greatly reduced but I would image the SB will be the last stand built, with the order being the townend, the arkells, the DRS redevelopment and then the Stratton Bank

Councillor dale Heenan has just tweeted  https://twitter.com/dale_heenan/status/222748894608633856

I haven't heard anything in the press, but he claims planning permission to develop town end could be submitted by August

Good news, can't wait, just hope it all goes through.

Coun Dale Heenan is chair of the planning committee......so assume this has gone to the planning committee perhaps

The Cllr has said that the highlight is a double stand for the Town End redevelopment..exciting times

It won't go to planning committee until around 10-13 weeks after it has been submitted as a major planning application. There will obviously also be a period where the public can comment etc. They may have presented draft plans to the planning chair prior to submission, but if that is the case i would be mighty pissed off if the chair then started w=tweeting about it prior to formal submission...

Right thats the sad planning consultant in me out of the way can we go back to football. Seriously though, its good that progress is being made.

We got a call at work about 'sponsoring' the CG with new TVs.

Considering we have nothing to do with TVs it was weird.

A guy I know had a call from some outsourced sales agency a couple of weeks ago, trying to get him to buy rolling advertising space on TV's in the concourses.

Said they sent him an advertising pack which had crappy images of rugby players in it and didn't seem like they'd spent any time on it.

Maybe Diamond Mike's ad agency have been recalled...

We gotta call too. New TVs in the stands showing ads or something like that.

Well now I don't feel special at all.

They've got a new tv in the entrance to the club office, a widescreen tv in portrait with a split screen showing live tv and rolling adverts and news. Guessing they'll roll that out across the stands.

2 tier Town End sounds cool though!

Double tiered Town end...was does it mean?!

Something like this one at Norwich.

[url width=500 height=375]http://farm1.static.flickr.com/139/351750711_e341152d1b.jpg[/url]

This could all go horribly wrong. As much as I agree that we need to rejuvanate the CG, we can't just create lots of space that people won't fill on Saturdays.

It'll fill in the Championship (which I'm sure we'll consolidate in within the next 3-4 years)

I assume the recommendation of placing a school at the old council yard (wherever that is) near the county ground won't impact our plans?

The recommendation is one of two potential sites for a new primary school, so it may not even end up there even if it is built.

I agree with you on this one. I still can't see how it's commercially viable to redevelop the county ground when surely its cheaper to start from scratch elsewhere. Also surely a brand new purpose built stadium will generate far more interest that modernising what we have?

It's not just about the extra capacity though, a revamped CG needs facilities that can create the club income 7 days a week and extra income on match days from the corporate market.

Why not have the second tier available and dependant on demand either open it if required or on lesser games, close it like they do for the Town End in JPT fixtures and the like. I would like to see the floodlights retained but not sure they will be somehow.

You should tell the board, I'm sure they haven't considered this. 

A 2 tier Town End would be awful. Especially if most of it is closed off for most games. An improved TE is needed, I agree, but not something that would completely lose the soul of a massive part of our clubs history.

That's pretty much located between the cricket pavilion and Manchester/County Rd roundabout. Can't see it being an issue unless the desired footprint for development stretches that far and the plan includes housing.

I'd miss the floodlights too  :(

Surely a single tier TE would look bland. I know to have anything remotely original costs, but you want some identity to your ground, don't you?

I think the reason for it being two-tiered is to accomodate everything we currently have in the Arkells... it will become the main 'hub' of the CG.

A lot of fans like sitting behind the goal, so a larger end stand sounds good to me. It also will need to be bigger to include the facilities that will hopefully generate further income.

In the short term as well, when they redo the arkells they need enough space to house them all, so a bigger town end will be needed.

They need to build to allow for potential extra fans should we become a sustainable championship club

The town end has sentimental value, and can get going for the big games, but lets face it. It is shit.

Small, cramped, shit view and shit facilities. It's not a great suprise they're doing that one first, i'd imagine it's probably the easiest to rebuild in the short term, because of the space behind it.

Spot on.

Whilst I agree with what everyone is saying, I still think that having a huge 2 tier stand similar to the Norwich one would dampen all atmosphere. When the Shrivvy road shed was replaced we lost all singing from that part of the ground. Of course, improvements need to be made and we need to progress. But, having a balance is also necessary to keep part of the old in with the new

Any new stand should be Eric-proof

The Stratton Bank can't be a full sized stand, so could be a suitable replacement for the Town End?

Nah, don't buy it.

If it's two tiers that means you can fill up an entire tier, where as if it was the same as say, Walsall's stand behind their goal, you'd just end up with loads of people spread out.

Agreed. You want to be able to plan for the future but at the same time don't want a white elephant a la Darlington.

I don't think the board are that short-sighted to induce a Darlington-style fuck up, any development will be within means and sensible.

Benzel has it bang on, if its not gonna be a big gate, you don't open one of the tiers.

It could be worse, we could end up with a soul less, unfinished, 32k capacity stadium full of plastic wankers.

Franchise i'm looking at you

Let's remember that we have a limited fanbase. Open up a stand that is too big behind the goal and we might drain everyone from the side stands. We want people around the whole ground, not all congregated behind the goal. Like I said before, it's all about balance.

I can only see us extending the ground to 18k-22k, so just because it is double tiered doesn't mean it will be enormous.

We might end up with a 2 tier stand similar to Southend  :nerner:

If the Town End stand will also incoperate the main stadium facilities and become the 'hub', presumably this means this will be where the changing rooms and tunnel will be?

Swindon behind both goals is a must, keep away fans in the Arkells/Arkells replacement.

Sanchez has it right, convert the Stratton Bank into a smaller, standing up friendly stand (obviously not a terrace) similar to the Town End.

If the houses behind the SB are an issue, I reckon they ought to build a 5,000 seater perspex stand or build one on 60ft high concrete stilts.

Why not do something similar to the aviva stadium in Ireland?

They said exactly the same thing at Carrow Road and both stands behind the goals - in fact doing something to the Barclays end was tantamount to treason.  From what I've seen of it, the ground seems ideal.

I think that  once the ground is finished we should look at giving the town end over to the away fans,  currently the sides are a lot more popular with home fans, a nice compact Bank that could generate some noise from the home fans and the increased revenue of a larger number of away fans that could be accommodated in the new stand that teams in the championship bring to help generate additional revenue

It wouldn't feel right though, for me the Town End is for home fans and has been for as long I can remember.

The Stratton bank should be kept for a away fans only - that way every stand will have fans in regardless of the crowd size. I don't like seeing an empty stand behind the goal, it looks even worse on t.v espeially if there is a decent attendance but the crowd looks small because of the empty bank.

I'd also like the town end to be 2 tier, the singer's would use the bottom tier & the others who want the decent view behind the goal would use the top tier

Either  :fishing:

Or some kind of sick joke

Quote from: red sheldon on Today at 12:15:00
I think that  once the ground is finished we should look at giving the town end over to the away fans,  currently the sides are a lot more popular with home fans, a nice compact Bank that could generate some noise from the home fans and the increased revenue of a larger number of away fans that could be accommodated in the new stand that teams in the championship bring to help generate additional revenue


Either 

Or some kind of sick joke

Or logical, away fans have been given the Town End in the past, fans want to sit on the sides for a better view, the acoustics will be far better and louder in the Bank whats not to like

I suspect that the club have been in consultations with the council on tihs s othe finer details on land etc have been agreed in principle, be interesting to see the outline plans, I'm sure they will be put up on line, but odd that there is no official statement, makes the councillor look a bit of an idiot for releasing the info though considering his position in the council.

Its like a scaled down version of liverpool giving the away fans the Kop.
The town end is the home end for me, always.
Also, as for the acoustics, that's assuming the stratton bank will be given a roof? Otherwise I highly doubt it would help the home fans generate any more noise, it would in fact probably be a lot worse.

It was given over to away fans for a time back in the 80's I believe.  I can remember sitting in the Arkells and having to listen to Middlesborough fans rubbing it in!!

I remember pompey having both ends one year.

wasn't there supposed to be an arcticle in todays adver about the propesed devlopment? I've been on the adver website and can't see anything there yet.

Yeah I thought there was as well, maybe the club want to wait till after the AGM to announce it through the media?!

Surely the point here is if they redevelop the TE first and make it the "hub", it'll make redeveloping the Arkells easier. It'll give the, chance to move corporate stuff over along with changing rooms too, and won't badly impact space when/if the Arkells ever gets knocked down... Order important when ground in use.

Agree over the points that TE could end up being top big but we have to hope by that point we've stepped up to the Championship. But ... It's a gamble. Hopefully a good one.

Read back a few pages, it seems matey boy on twitter shot his load too soon

As ever on the ground stuff....believe it when you see it.  We've had the leader of SBC before now sitting at the top table, outlining exciting plans, and the club doing all sorts of plans, only for the whole thing to be as real as a banker's concern for customers.

Wonder how big the double decker Town End would be:

[url width=640 height=480]http://linux.doof92.co.uk/footballsite/walsall/07.The%20Floors%202%20Go%20Stand.JPG[/url]

A closed top deck on the Shrivenham Road stand didn't do the atmosphere any harm, and only Reg is old enough to remember it open.. :)

Anyone wondered why we are away at the front end and back end of the season? One week extra to spend on rebuilding the town end perchance.....

I'm surprised about all this talk about a 2 tier Town End

...considering Nick Watkins announced it was going to be 2 tier back in November 2010 !!

i've just been looking at Rotherham UTD's new ground
http://www.footballgroundguide.com/rotherham_united/

it has a Morrisons sand and a Eric Twigg Foods & Pukka Pies West Stand.

I think we should develop such names for the CC. Suggestions?!

in all fairness it looks quite compact and close to the pitch. bet the acoustics will be good too

With its location, perhaps The Hazrat Shah Jalal Mosque Town End Stand?

Seeing as they sponsor it already, is it not likely to remain the "Fastplant Town end"?

Probably, think it was the C&D Town End before that

Depends how long the sponsorship deal is for, plus a better looking town end would attract better more lucrative sponsorship deals.

Ha, I thought you were going to say " A better looking Town End would attract more attractive viewers "  :D

You fail to mention the biggest naming cock up, they've called it the New York stadium. I'm aware that the locals may have called the are New York, but its still a stupid name.

Should do this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-18786163

'The Devil Made Me Do It Ground'

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/9811756.Town_reveal_bid_to_redevelop_stadium/?ref=twt

Perfect location for a hotel

*awaits 'we don't need another town centre hotel' comments.

In all seriousness (and i'm not trying to be negative!) we've had a load of town centre hotels pop up recently - what are their occupancy rates? Obviously these chains do their research, but i can't imagine demand is *that* high?

incorporate a school in there if the council needs one and rent it back to them

if the conference facilities are at a very good standard then that alone would bring alot of business to any hotel.

Totally agree, some of the town centre hotels have very limited parking if any at all.  Another route they could go down would be to incorporate a Premier Inn - the one by us is always busy and car parking would not be an issue.  A Premier Inn with an adjacent restaurant and bar - run by STFC - would be a money spinner I think.

Be a good pull for us out of towners that fancy a night out in Swindon after the game as well

I believe the Double tree Hilton at Stadium:MK rents the space for the hotel, so occupancy levels etc aren't the concern of the stadium/club as they still get their money at the end of each month.

But obviously you have to have the demand for the hotel to want the space in the first place.

Aren't people forgetting we already have a hotel in the vicinity. The County Ground Hotel!!!!

Agreed

:pint: :pint: yes   :zzz: :zzz: no!!

As if you'd make it back there after a night out :)

Handy for the Manchester Road workers?

No need to book a hotel for just a handy.

http://www.swindontownfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10341~2847460,00.html

Statement from the club saying they're looking for the existing and new investors to invest for the push to the Championship and the Stadium.

There is no real decent conferencing facilities in Swindon and a lot of company's go out of town when they require like up the road to the Madjeski this so this on it's own would bring in much needed income, but it is also about the other facilities that they will have to bring in like a hotel so the club generates more income, this is the key and also they would have to deal with the covenant as at present time only sporting activities are allowed on the site, this may cost a few quid to settle also.

The key thing is though is the new lease with the council, if the council are not putting money into this then they should not retain 100% ownership of a redeveloped ground, hopefully an agreement will be reached whereby perhaps the council own 50% share but are unable to sell that 50% share unless the other parties are in agreement and vice versa.

We have to remember I think that one day Fitton, Wray, Backhouse et all may want to sell up to recoup some of what they are putting in we need to make sure that the future of the club is secured and the club and the ground cannot be seperated by any new owners that is why this agreement with the council will be quite important.

So the boars are putting in more money into the club and they are also in talks with property developers to invest if they want to geton board with the redevelopment, is that reading it correct ?

I assume buying the land is out of the question then?

soapy tit wank

Premier in is part of the the Whitbread empire, I doubt they or us would make much from it. Better we run it ourselves I think and retain the loins share of the dosh.

Mind you I just booked the Newport ISle of shyte today for one night next week at £104.00 just to sleep, thieving so and so's.

I was going to do that Saturday night as we are in Lymington on Saturday to watch someone we know run a torch relay leg. Ferry was quite reasonable, but as you say accommodation was lethal even for something travelodge style. Its not even school holidays FFS. Oh well.

Hope you enjoyed my cool story.

Our Italian student goes back Saturday, we could have sneaked you in for one night in single beds.

Not sure me, the Mrs and 2 sprogs would fit but thanks for the thought!

We have a garage.

I can offer a stable

:) Don't want them getting used to luxuries like sleeping in the garage

Yes it is apparently, however the lease runs out next March and the council are supposedly offering a 250 year lease, should be enough for any potential investors to be happy about.

And do deals like "get the price of your match ticket off the cost of a one night stay" or somethin like that

Just a thought:

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/9815004.On_the_hunt_for_new_technical_college_site/

Build a technical college onto the ground.

That's similar to what rovers are looking at for their new ground, that'll be a good idea I think anyway.

Problem with that is the footprint, it is already going to take up some of the car park, make it much bigger and that is when problems will appear!!  Local residents etc.?

Build up?

This was from last year's AGM in January 2011 -

Build an underground car park, problem solved

Building at the back of the Arkells seems a bit strange, very little room there, at the back of the DRS got to be a possibility!!

Unless we relocate the cricket club

The technology park that was talked about had nothing to do with the new technical college - more of a business park that would have been built on the cricket pitch / sports field, iirc.

I don't get the car parking issues. There isn't a real need for the current car park at the ground, just that people are used to it. Plenty of parking in the town centre and public transport which works perfectly fine for a lot of other clubs.

Did the big fat greek not suggest that at some time, don't think it went down too well!!

Problem with that Johnny is that the club actually has no say over the car park - except on match days - it is owned and run by SBC.

Not quite sure why you think there will be a problem with making changes to (or removing) the car park as part of the redevelopment, seeing as the council own the car park, the rest of the land the ground is on, are in charge of the planning process and local transport and so on.

It worth bearing in mind that in property development terms a 250 year lease is essentially freehold anyway as any yields for investors or later purchasers would be calculated on considerably shorter terms than that (to illustrate - think about it this way 250 years back from now is 1762 and how much the world has changed since then and no-one would have based investment decisions on that length of time).

I really cannot see them running a hotel themselves as it is a very specialised business, I would suggest it would be at best a JV with an operator, I think something similar is happening at the Reebok.

In my opinion Jonny the council may not be quite so happy to give away their car park, the residents who use it locally after 6 pm would not be happy and at the end of the day it is a council asset they control.  Should they have the need to build on it it would turn into prime building land and I cannot see them releasing it.  The CG is also an asset but they technically have no control over it as long as we pay our rent!  Something we failed to do many times in the past and almost suffered for it!

Can't see land next to a Football ground being that prime to be honest