Re: Stadium Development Thread : Thu Aug 09, 2012 12:41 pm  

Tigerade wrote:

As long as we keep our heads above water we should be OK staying at WR comparing with the RFL's latest agenda's. It wouldn't bother me if we stayed at WR and I still have concerns that - if we did move to GH - it could be finacial suicide for us (ala Salford). I'm still not convinced Wakey moving to NM will be financally successful either.

It is a difficult one, this one!

First thing to say is that I always thought that the funding model for Salford's stadium was risky. The stadium was developed by Salford Council & Peel and it was always the plan that the Salford club would be charged an annual rental that would be used to pay back the capital put forward as bridge funding between the developer 106 contribution and the full cost. Also, the deal was that other income generation was be used to do the same thing. They knew what they were getting into! Now that Sale are moving in, the costs can be split, so the annual rental halving might make an ongoing Salford City Reds at the stadium perfectly viable, but it could be (and probably is) previous debts that is crippling them now!

The Castleford plan for GH (under RW anyway?) was that they would develop GH themselves and that the club (the private limited company) would own the stadium outright. The benefits of this plan are obvious, a new large asset owned by the business and it's shareholders, every single bit of income the stadium generates comes to the business etc, meaning you just have to pay for upkeep, maintenance & business rates. Although WR is owned currently by the club we of course all know that this now (due to the issues of land values for development falling) doesn't cover what the business needs it to cover at GH. The Opus plan (so we were all told) would cover all this and they would cover the costs against planning gain and therefore this plan could continue. This is also probably the reason that although £2m quid was in effect on offer from WMDC the club (under RW) never created a vehicle to access this money, because of course WMDC can't give away anything to a privately owned business. I think RW's plan was to not use this money unless he had to (which is a good plan if you don't need it) and if he did need it, he would worry about it then and come to some sort of arrangement with WMDC about how they incorporated some freely accessible community elements into the scheme which gave the community at least £2m worth of benefit whilst the limited company still owned the ground.

The problem would appear to be that unless Opus/Tesco do a deal, and I haven't heard anything for months about this, then the whole plan is in limbo and no one is sure if there is a plan B, other than improve WR?

Newmarket is different again, and looks a low risk model and well thought out if the top-up funding can all be accessed as planned (and we have no reason to doubt this at the moment).

The Community Trust (a not for profit company) will have a 99 year lease on the stadium and community sports facilities and the developer (or whomever!) will still own the freehold. The developers money is bound in the 106 agreement and it isn't paying for the whole thing, just the largest part, and this is the money he has promised for planning gain (this is exactly the same plan as Opus, so I still wonder why some Cas posters think the Opus plan is different... it isn't) and doesn't have to be paid back. The Community Trust have to find the top-up funding to find the shortfall. They have £2m from WMDC, which can be accessed because it is going to a trust and not a private limited company, and then have to find the rest themselves. This is where the trust board and Sir Rodney come in, they can legitimately access and use government, non-government & charitable funding bodies to bridge the gap and that was always the plan. So Sport England, lottery sports funding, other charity's and charitable trusts etc, to develop what is and always was a community sports facility. Add Wakefield College into the mix now and the funding they can access as trust business and that means, hopefully, the funding gap can be bridged as planned.

This means that the only currently planned anchor tenant (and any other future second tenants???), Wakefield Trinity Wildcats, can be charged a low annual lease value that needs to cover annual upkeep cost only. The actual value is not fully established (because it can only be an estimated at this time) but I can tell you it is way below the £300k that Salford pay. No shareholders, no profit required!

Only time will tell now, if both Wakefield and/or Cas plans come to fruition!

Re: Stadium Development Thread : Thu Aug 09, 2012 1:05 pm  

At the time of the Meet the Directors night, Steve Ferris declined to talk about our current status of the stadium plans because in such a short time he understandably wasn't up to speed of exactly where we are on it. Well he's had a bit of time to review it now, so he'd gain credibility and future respect if he now let us know the official line of where we are with it.

Re: Stadium Development Thread : Fri Aug 10, 2012 6:05 am  

Thanks for the reply IA.

Another element of Salfords failings this year have been the forecasts of attendances since the move away from the Willows. The break-even point was set at 10,000 - they are only getting half of that. I agree, the shared rent with Sale Sharks will no doudt eliviate this but no way near the income from 5,000 "missing" supporters.

Its instances like this where I see the greater risk to both Cas and Wakey moving out of town. Granted - we both need better/modern facilities but the concept of "build it and they will come" won't always work - as Salford have found out.

Re: Stadium Development Thread : Fri Aug 10, 2012 7:54 am  

I do appreciate that the £2m from Wakefield district Council can only go to a trust but i fail to see why everyone keeps going on about this as such a major stumbling block to accesing finance.

I can assure you now that when the cash is required i.e. at the point in time contracts are signed etc both Cas and Wakey will be able to draw on these funds.

Setting up a Trust , charitable of not, is very simple and much like setting up a company can be done in a matter of days (less if its a relatively standard set of articles - we can allways copy Wakey's if need be as they are publically available information after all). The reason why you would not set one up is due to the professional fees required to audit such a trust year on year plus the administration documents required each year. If its not required yet why set it up? £2-5K a year to audit a dormant trust is cash we dont have to blow away.

Re: Stadium Development Thread : Fri Aug 10, 2012 8:06 am  

I still cant see why the RFL keep insisting on this new stadia when the British game is quite frankly light years away from being competitive with the NRL.

People will invariably hark back to the WCC and how Leeds beat the best the world has - well yes they did but let us remind ourselves when the game was played - 4 weeks before the NRL season began and 4 weeks after ours started. In essence it was a per season friendly for the aussies. Nothing more.

Surely the money being spent by cas, wakey, salford, Hull KR etc would be better spent actually on developing a crop of young players for the future. £200k goes to pay 15 youngsters and a coach that could if developed properly go on in ten years time to be competitive at a world cup and inturn develope or game internationally. If that were applied accross the whole of SL then we may actually move forward.

However spending £200k on planning applications and architechts fees is not enhancing our game at all. In fact would suggest it actually detracts from our game and makes it look like a regional sport. It cant loog good on sky to see a nice new stadium with 3/4 of the seats empty.

If you compare this to Australia the comparasions are stark. Take Manly for example. NRL winners constantly produce outstanding world class players and play in a stadium that has three sides of which two were built in the 1970's and have a grass knowl on 1 side and part of a second. This knowl is the family stand and is packed on a sunny day because for many fans is the best atmosphere. The same i beleive is the case for Cronulla (could be wrong). The point however is that Australia has said screw stadia - great if you can - but its about the players who take to the park each weekend. Maybe its about time we actually took a note from the NRL which makes sense and can be applied to the British game to make it work.

Re: Stadium Development Thread : Fri Aug 10, 2012 12:11 pm  

Tigerade wrote:

Thanks for the reply IA.

Another element of Salfords failings this year have been the forecasts of attendances since the move away from the Willows. The break-even point was set at 10,000 - they are only getting half of that. I agree, the shared rent with Sale Sharks will no doudt eliviate this but no way near the income from 5,000 "missing" supporters.

Its instances like this where I see the greater risk to both Cas and Wakey moving out of town. Granted - we both need better/modern facilities but the concept of "build it and they will come" won't always work - as Salford have found out.

I agree with you about the simple 'build it and they will come' and I think this also appears to be where Salford went and are going wrong. I also think that Salford don't have the same relevance or importance, as a club, to their surrounding communities as Castleford & Wakefield do to theirs. I think Warrington would be a better comparison to both clubs than Salford, and look what a successful move to a new stadium did for their attendances when they were in a similar position in the table to Cas & Wakie!

I also think that good intelligent marketing makes a huge difference and I think Wakie have been simply outstanding at this since Glover took over and I think under Ferres & Fozzard, Cas are borrowing ideas with pride and appear to be stepping up in this area already. I think Wakefield attracting well over 8000 a game at Belle Vue bodes well for a move, hopefully in 2015, and I think Cas have the potential to step up attendances at WR and that averages of around the magic 10,000 are achievable to both clubs in new stadia. The hard bit, for everyone, is paying for one!

Re: Stadium Development Thread : Fri Aug 10, 2012 12:39 pm  

Announcement next week per Steve Ferres email to ST holders.

Re: Stadium Development Thread : Fri Aug 10, 2012 4:29 pm  

Hatfield tiger wrote:

I do appreciate that the £2m from Wakefield district Council can only go to a trust but i fail to see why everyone keeps going on about this as such a major stumbling block to accesing finance.

I can assure you now that when the cash is required i.e. at the point in time contracts are signed etc both Cas and Wakey will be able to draw on these funds.

Setting up a Trust , charitable of not, is very simple and much like setting up a company can be done in a matter of days (less if its a relatively standard set of articles - we can allways copy Wakey's if need be as they are publically available information after all). The reason why you would not set one up is due to the professional fees required to audit such a trust year on year plus the administration documents required each year. If its not required yet why set it up? £2-5K a year to audit a dormant trust is cash we dont have to blow away.

I think you might be missing my point a little. Yes, setting up a trust company is no big deal at all but actually creating a vehicle with which WMDC and other funders are happy with is different and much harder!

The point I was making is that under RW the plan for GH was to move, debt free, into a new stadium solely owned by the club as a private limited company! Like I said, if you can afford to do this then the benefits are obvious and I think that was what RW wanted to do, if possible, and not have to be beholding to other funding, including WMDC, because they can't just give it to a private for-profit business and they will also demand something for their money! WMDC and others would demand a clear and transparent indefinite community benefit and that is the bit that I think will be hard to organise when in reality, you just want the £2m to add to the build fund. I am not sure how this would work, given that WMDC, can't take share in Cas Tigers either? Maybe an agreement for indefinite free use of the facilities for WMDC approved groups and a charge of £2m on the ground, if it was ever to be sold, meaning it would be similar to a directors loan secured on the ground owned by Cas?

The Community Trust model that is been used for Newmarket is better for external funders because they are giving the money to a trust who will own & run the stadium and community sports facilities for and on behalf of the community. Spirit of 1873 Ltd are just a paying tenant who although they are a for-profit business, will be paying the largest part of the annual running costs of the stadium and facilities but that is all. They won't see a penny of the money used to build the stadium and therefore Spirit of 1873 don't see any direct (and direct is the key word) financial benefit from WMDC money or any other governmental/charitable funding.

Of course Wakefield have no other choices because they don't have the current asset level of Cas Tigers but equally unless Cas can the whole thing funded then the only way to ever build GH, might be to go down a similar route of seeking funding.

Lets see what Steve Ferres has to say now.