Another day, another complaint...

[McLovin]

STFC wants to be given cash


READING E Jones' letter concerning the County Ground (Monday January 16) his observations about Nick Martin being a once every four years football fan could easily be aimed at many people.

After all, how many of the 35,000 Swindon fans that made their way to Wembley in 1993 turn up every week to support the town?

Only a small percentage as the majority of these people were and are fair weather fans and if they had remained loyal maybe the club would not be in its current precarious position.

Football may be the national game but that doesn't put Swindon Town Football Club above the laws of the land.

Other councils may have helped their football club to upgrade or replace their stadiums but they didn't sell acres of land for new housing to finance it.

This is what STFC would like to see happen. They have no money to put in themselves and their answer is to use land belonging to the people of Swindon to finance a new stadium, hotel facilities, conference centre etc, which will pay off their debts and ultimately see them use the additional income from the extra facilities to stay solvent and pay out dividends to the shareholders To be honest you cannot blame them for trying.

But as a council taxpayer and town centre resident I find it completely unacceptable that we should face losing yet another sporting/playing field to yet more housing and ultimately seeing the loss of land for financing and enhancing a business.

Like it or not the whole situation is about money. STFC want to be given it and Swindon Council cannot give them any. This is not a small-minded attitude, this is a fact.

K LEAKEY.

Swindon

[DMR]

I can't get over the blokes name.

[STFC_Manc]

im sure that STFC dont want the councils money, as it will still be the councils property? also losing sporting facitlietes wot bout the facitlities that will be created for the community?

[le god cuervo]

as a council taxpayer and town centre resident I find it completely unacceptable that we should face losing yet another sporting/playing field to yet more housing and ultimately seeing the loss of land for financing and enhancing a business.

dont people realise that if STFC move away from the county ground site even more houses will be built there anyway!

[magicroundabout]

as a council taxpayer and town centre resident I find it completely unacceptable that we should face losing yet another sporting/playing field to yet more housing and ultimately seeing the loss of land for financing and enhancing a business.

dont people realise that if STFC move away from the county ground site even more houses will be built there anyway!

and think of the affect it would have on local businesses.
The Burger King/Chip Shop and the pubs would lose out finacially(sp).

[Dazzza]

Leaky by name leaky by letter (you can use that for free if anyone puts a response in).

Other councils may have helped their football club to upgrade or replace their stadiums but they didn't sell acres of land for new housing to finance it.

No they gave them cold hard cash or in some cases gave them land to re-develop commercially to fund construction.

This all harps back to the original problem mentioned in another thread last week.  You lay a few titbits out and individuals go into blood lust.  If Mr Leaky took the time and trouble to write a letter he may have taken the time and trouble to at least make his letter accurate.

The club have not requested land.  They put forward a proposal, rumour has it after being led to believe it was entirely feasible by a councillor and were then told it was out of the question.  

It's widely understood that the council are not going to be green lighting the little master plan outlined above and the club certainly won't be running with it.

[BrightonRed]

Maybe Mr Leaky would do well to read this little page of info: http://www.hullcc.gov.uk/property/flagshipprojects/stadium.php

I'll select some quotes:

Kingston upon Hull City Council has invested in sport and education through the funding and development of the KC Stadium ... The concept is that of a sports and lifelong learning complex where professional sport meets top amateur sport meets community sport.

the stadium project is acting as a catalyst to help kick-start the regeneration of the ... city.

The total cost of the project was approximately £46 million. This has been funded primarily through the City Council together with a £2.4 million grant award from the Football Foundation secured by Hull City AFC and around £900,000 of Single Regeneration Budget funding. The total cost of the stadium itself was approximately £28m.

[BrightonRed]

Now on to Swansea..

Neither the rugby or football clubs had money to invest in new facilities.

Sound Familiar?

The City & County of Swansea also didn't have capital to invest in the venture but it did have one key asset - it owned the proposed site

Hmmmm..

The City & County of Swansea's solution was to include additional land in the development to create the potential for a major mixed-use retail and leisure development opportunity.

Fancy using Council-owned land for that purpose... shocking..

The stadium's architects were keen to create a stadium that wasn't simply a sporting venue, but rather somewhere that would play a vital role in the sporting, entertainment, business and community life of the city.

Swansea now has a world-class multi-use sporting venue to be proud of.

The stadium is already securing a healthy share of conferencing and exhibition opportunities.

The solutions found for Swansea New Stadium act as a template for other clubs and councils faced with the challenge of upgrading sporting facilities in an increasingly difficult economic climate. The innovative funding approach, coupled with the willingness to link a community facility with a private sector commercial development, has resulted in a sustainable sporting legacy, which will benefit the whole community for decades to come.

Wouldn't that be nice..

http://www.swansea.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=9850

[land_of_bo]

Nive investigatory work there BR

[BrightonRed]

Nive investigatory work there BR

 


To be honest I didn't know a lot about either of these developments.. I was quite shocked to find out just how similar the Swansea situation was to our current situation..

It seems pretty simple to me..

Club can't afford stadium

Council can't afford stadium..

Council wants to invest in city sporting facilities... ('Swindon 2010 - Taking Control of our Future'??)

Council combines a community facility with a private sector commercial development.

Swindon now has a world-class multi-use sporting venue to be proud of which will benefit the whole community for decades to come..

(apologies for blatant quoting.. )

[Arriba]

all well and good but where will the athletics and cricket clubs be moved to.
this does need addressing,i personally dont care but others will.
it may effect councillors decisions about any future development.

[SwindonTartanArmy]

all very well replying to the guy on here. put it in a letter to the adver so the twat (and everyone else for that matter) can see what an ill informed idiot he is! :old:

[RobertT]

all well and good but where will the athletics and cricket clubs be moved to.
this does need addressing,i personally dont care but others will.
it may effect councillors decisions about any future development.

That is the only major question that still doesn't have a proper answer form the club, and will prove to be the stumbling block if they did continue with the original outline proposals of using all the land (it won't get through planning).

The middle ground is to use all the space in the car park, behind the Arkells, the small bit behind the Stratton Bank (not the grassed area - although this could be landscaped as part of the proposal to sweeten the locals), and the land from the ground to the Magic Roundabout.

Build up rather than out and we should just be able to include most of what we desire (flats rather than houses, high rise hotel like in the Town Centre, inc conference and new stands with executive boxes).

As other have posted, the legality issues are a red herring, but as you hint at, the land issues will be played on by locals unless a middle ground is found.

[pauld]

all well and good but where will the athletics and cricket clubs be moved to.
this does need addressing,i personally dont care but others will.
it may effect councillors decisions about any future development.

That is the only major question that still doesn't have a proper answer form the club,

It's not Rob, far from it. The club have only made outline proposals public and there could well be a hell of a lot of devil to be found in the detail - they'd need a properly put business case before they could go any further. But at this stage, all they've sought to do is (quite correctly) to put some proposals out as an initial outline. What's disappointing is how some have chosen to use this as an excuse to try and shoot the whole thing down before it gets started.

[mattboyslim]

The only problem we seem to have is that most clubs moved to an area on the edge of Town freeing up prime central sites.  We tried this already (to no avail), and we are now trying to do it on such a central site.  In Swansea both the rugby and footbal grounds were pretty close to the centre, (so aside from getting two sports grounds to develop, which is quite unusual) and the facilities are now in the morpha valley (i think) where a small exisiting athletics stadium already existed and I assume the land was cheaper and plentiful.