Thetownend.com

I see it is up in 4 years time and the board are speaking with the council in regards to this. Would it be stupid to hope that maybe Sbc may actually notice we have some decent people running this club now and seriously considrer the sale of the county ground to us.

I think it's a definite possibility. I think the club have already asked about it.

I think Fitton said at some point last season that talks with SBC regarding the future of the CG seemed to be going well. Fingers crossed.

Watkins said earlier on in the season that they are in discussions with SBC.

I think their decision to stay or move will hinge on redevelopment possibilities. If it's not possible on the current site then there is no point in renewing a long term lease.

I thought the option to buy was always there but the sticking point was money. Are there other reasons why the council won't sell it to us?

Previous plans have inluded some sort of residential property on the land in order to help fund it. SBC would be losing out on money by selling the land cheaper to the club than what they could sell to a house builder.

I guess we're fortunate that development in the centre of Swindon has been proceding at a snail's pace in recent years.  Buying a lease on that site is not going to be cheap - but it would have been more expensive still if the centre of town wasn't so shabby.  We need to sign the lease before the rennaissance happens (!) (which probably means at some point in the next 50 years.)

I'm so glad the club are heavily in favour of staying at the current site. :D Moving to the outskirts would be the death of STFC as we know it.

There is a covenant (spelling?) which dictates that the land has to be used for sporting and recreational purposes.  I believe this was a condition when the land was donated by the Goddard Estate, so if anybody (STFC, the council, or whoever) wants to build houses on the land, money has to go to the Goddard Estate as well as the council so it all starts getting messy.

I think that if they were to incorporate things like a hotel, casino, bowling alley etc, these may be deemed as "recreational purposes" so they save on the costs they would have to pay, but the time it takes to recoup the development costs from these things is significantly longer than if they were to build houses and sell them to fund a new stadium.

All in all, not an easy position to be in.

Are you a ref Rich ?

Yes.....cue a barage of abuse!

hahaha can't pretend Im not tempted.

Stick around Rich..................next season should be interesting now the TEF has it's own resident Ref

ignore fred, get out you bastard

I understand that SBC spent £400,000 on the Radio One big weekend. Which most couldn't get tickets for.

So they can come up with cash when they want to

It's all probably made simpler by the fact that there is no longer a sneaky slimy bastard trying to get a cut of it all

I cant see any logic to SBC selling the CG to STFC when they could easier get more money by selling to property developers or a big supermarket like Asda. Not sure if this covenant will make much difference. Lawyers always find loopholes and ways around obsticles.

 As Ardiles says ATM the development of Swindon centre has ground, to a more or less, complete halt...plenty of vacant lots, boarded up properties, and what look like bomb sites. Reminds me of Belfast in the 80's.

 If our owners could drive some sort of regeneration project forward, then right now SBC are going to bite their hand off.

On the plus side, we should have a shiny new Jury's Inn open very soon

And a very nice view it has of the bomb site opposite, where the mobile soup kitchen doles out some fodder to the lengthy queue of homeless and junkies that gather there.

they actually gather inthe Travelpodge Reg

Travelpodge.... :) Nev will be proud of you.

SBC have a bit of a white elephant with the CG (including the cricket ground). Even if they could find a loophole with the covenant (which I doubt) they would be going against the Goddard Estate, the football club and the cricket club - there is no way they would want to risk pissing off that number of people.

Some kind of compromise would seem the way forward. Maybe swapping the land for a stake in the club?

Not true. As Mr Reaper pointed out, the Goddards would sell the covenant for a suitable sum. This was factual during the appallingly dreadful shocking time when the lovely verdant Shaw  Forest was going to be concreted over.

We asked the Goddard's solicitors.

So the Goddard Estate can revoke the covenant in exchange for cash, or whatever?

I was always under the impression that a covenant would be protected by the courts and couldn't be retracted even by the party that issued it. Just an assumption rather than being based on factual law.

<adver comments section>That's all very well, but do we really have that many Juries coming to stay in Swindon looking for this type of accomodation. Another white elephant, and how much public money has gone into that eh, eh, eh? Thanks SBC, just think how many floating duck islands that could have bought for impoverished MPs. Regeneration, pah!</adver comments section>

And on a more sane note, the council have always been quite happy to discuss selling the CG stadium to the club. It gets more complex/expensive if the club want to buy the whole site (ie not just the stadium + footprint) and is undoable if your proposals are unlawful and involved the council giving you £25m of public assets for a development that will no more get planning permission than I will grow a womb. Which was always the problem with the old regime's proposals - not council unwillingness. Assuming the club plan to redevelop for sporting/recreational use the covenant is a non-issue and as TT has said, even if not, it doesn't present a legal hurdle only a financial one. And as Reg points out, the council should be considerably more willing to work with a sane regeneration partner in the form of the current board than they were previously, especially in light of their desperate need to kickstart town centre regeneration.

However, it's not all positive. I seem to remember from reading the terms of the original (1890-something) lease/covenant/agreement that we're specifically excluded from creating any form of pig rendering plant or tannery on the site. So if the board's plans revolve round a massive post-swine flu pig disposal unit, the redevelopment could be in a lot of trouble

Well it does overlook the Magistrates and Crown Courts, something I cannoy overlook as being fantastically coincidental.

There are some benches outside as well.

And it has a bar.

And some old cunts in wigs.

A very disturbing mental image of toupee adorned ancient female genitalia.

Watch out, there's a merkin lurkin