Ground move unlikely

[Phil_S]

I'm not sure how it would work, regarding the covenant, (& it may help them here) but couldn't they negotiate with the council to BUY the freehold.
Now is the time to buy with prices of land at a low, & the crowds (& rent) lower than they are likely to be in the future.
 

[Reg Smeeton]

  There's an extended article in today's Adver on what AF said at teh AGM,

  Nothing we don't already know, but it is good news for the traditionalists, personally I think it's very much a case of believe it when you see it....anything that involves SBC is very unlikely to see the light of day anytime soon.

  Readers may recall a few years back teh incoming Tory admin produced a list of 50 must do items by 2010...none of which were to do with STFC....they've done the library, and fair play for that, I like the idea of my Council Tax funding a job for Larwood.

 And a quick perusal of the 50 promises, does suggest some moves towards targets, like 50% recycling..but this wish list was writing in an economic boom time. It's very difficult to see SBC suddenly making STFC a priority for 2011.

[leefer]

Saw that Reg..regarding Newcastle etc,go to Newcastle alot and am always amazed how good a ground bang in the centre of the City....a revamped County Ground would look very imposing IMO,really good to see Fitton thinking of such things in detail and not just glory hunting,i for one would sooner have a our ground ware it is.

[Simon Pieman]

Don't know if we'd be able to buy the land. Going to be hard to find a loan in this economic climate.

[pauld]

Don't know if we'd be able to buy the land. Going to be hard to find a loan in this economic climate.

Any ground redev would require a degree of capital investment up-front. For a genuine investment, as opposed to chucking money into a wage bill, that may be something the owners would be prepared to front up for, rather than seeking a commercial loan, at least in partnership with developers. And I don't think buying out the freehold of the stadium itself would cost a huge amount.

The surrounding land would cost a little more of course, but if you're not planning on putting hundreds of houses on it, then as I understand it needn't necessarily cost the full commercial value if developed for housing (ie the £25m or whatever). Plus if you're working in partnership with the local authority to develop facilities for the benefit of the community, as opposed to, say, demanding land for free that you want to develop solely for private greed, that also gives the local authority considerably more scope to reach a favourable deal.