Help with Ground Redevelopement

[Panda Paws]

I am meant to writing a piece for my uni course on the ground redevelopment, and more to the point, Swindon Borough Councils opinions and involvement, and would really appreciate some input.

I've a had look at the trust website and thats a great source of information from their point of view, and the adver archive has a lot from the club, but i'm struggling to find some some quotes/soundbites outlining the councils stand on the ground. If i remember correctly Justin Tomlinson was quite outspoken about the issue.

I'm sure alot of you guys on here know a fair amount on the issue, and I would appreciate any links etc. regarding the council.

Any help would be highly appreciated.

[Tails]

Ring the council tomorrow and ask them their opinion on it? Would be handy if you lived in Swindon with the local elections tomorrow, could get your own quotes. Maybe if you are nice, the good people of the town end will help you out!

[Phil_S]

The Trust is definitely the place to go. They have in the past done a hell of a lot of work on the ground redevelopement including research of other stadia, & consultation with the local councillors & residents. In fact this is to date the ONLY proposal that has stould any cahnce with the powers that be.
If you want an example of how NOT to do it, approach  the previous board, who of course rejected the TRUSTs proposals out of hand as being fatally flawed. When questioned on what part of it was fatally flawed Mike Bowden admitted that he hadn't looked at it, but there wasn't enough housing proposed. I've heard it said, & I think it was at the last fans forum, that there was no way on earth the council would deal with the previous regime. The reason given was that no councillor would want to be associatted with anything that might turn out to be a "financially insecure", but I believe it was more to do with the fact that & I quote  "someone wanted to put 4,000 houses on the site.

[Reg Smeeton]

Although not strictly to do with the thread, its quite intersting to read this snippet from the ever readable David Conn, in the Guardian about how Doncaster managed to get a new ground.

  ..... In December 2006 the elected mayor of Doncaster, Martin Winter, made good his promise to build a "community stadium" and Rovers gleefully moved into it alongside Doncaster Rugby League club. The Keepmoat Stadium was built with £30m of council taxpayers' money and a £2m grant from the Football Foundation, its quality delighting Ryan and Rovers' fans but with some opposition politicians arguing it was not a legitimate use of public money.

Rovers' fortunes have been hugely boosted; having not had to contribute at all to the stadium's construction, they pay £250,000 in rent, plus 10.4% of ticket revenues above a gate of 8,000. Last month a leaked report from the council showed the stadium has already lost £2.5m, leading to renewed criticism that the council is subsidising the club.

"The football club is a private company owned by John Ryan, which attracts around 8,000 people, a very small proportion of Doncaster's population," argues Stephen Coddington, a Liberal Democrat councillor. "The tickets are expensive [adult prices this season have been £22, £19 and £15 for category A, B and C matches] and there is an issue about whether this is a good use of public money in a town which is not wealthy."

The council, which owns the freehold to Belle Vue, is currently negotiating with Westferry finally to sell and develop that site as a joint venture. This, too, is seen by Coddington and others in the town as a poor deal; although the club has moved away, O'Brien, via Westferry, still has 56 years of the old Doncaster Rovers lease on Belle Vue to run and so will be entitled to a share of the proceeds of sale when the ground is sold and redeveloped.

The mayor has defended the new stadium by arguing it is a "transformational project" which will promote regeneration and soon move into profit while Ryan - who is having to renegotiate the rent upwards - argues that the club is a vital rallying point for Doncaster. "If we get promoted, the whole town will get a massive lift," he says......

  O'Brien, and Westferry, bought the club, from the previous owner, Richardson who burned down a stand and got Donny to the Conference, they then sold the side to Ryan, but will profit form any housing built on Belle Vue.

[pauld]

I am meant to writing a piece for my uni course on the ground redevelopment, and more to the point, Swindon Borough Councils opinions and involvement, and would really appreciate some input.

I've a had look at the trust website and thats a great source of information from their point of view, and the adver archive has a lot from the club, but i'm struggling to find some some quotes/soundbites outlining the councils stand on the ground. If i remember correctly Justin Tomlinson was quite outspoken about the issue.

I'm sure alot of you guys on here know a fair amount on the issue, and I would appreciate any links etc. regarding the council.

Any help would be highly appreciated.

The council's stance is pretty straightforward - they're actually quite keen to help any SANE and LEGAL redevelopment plan for the CG as they do "get" that the club is a benefit to the community and that a redeveloped ground could be a massive boost to leisure/civic pride/local economy etc etc. What they're not prepared to countenance are the various loony schemes (in some cases of dubious legality) that have been put forward in recent years along the lines of "You give us £25m worth of public land and we'll build a load of houses on it and sell them to make ourselves a pile of cash".

If you're looking for direct quotes, I'd suggest your best bet would probably just be to ask the councillors concerned directly. rbluh@swindon.gov.uk is email address for Rod Bluh (council leader); justint@tb-marketing.com is for Justin Tomlinson (lead member for leisure and recreation - ie this falls within his cabinet remit).

If you're looking for an "opposition" view, Bob Wright is one of the Labour councillors who represents the Central Ward bob.wright.gov@ntlworld.com and it's worth emailing Anne Snelgrove (Labour MP for Swindon South) who has taken a keen interest throughout annesnelgrovemp@parliament.uk.

Wouldn't expect a reply from any of them till early next week though - suspect they're all a little preoccupied with the elections tomorrow!

[Panda Paws]

Cheers Guys