Bullseye wrote:
On the one hand us getting the leasehold gives us some more security since after this season we weren’t clear where we’d play. There were no clear options with VP being unaffordable, Horsfall not being big enough and Dewsbury being outside the city.
On the other it raises a lot of questions.
Can we afford to buy the leasehold?
Can we afford the upkeep?
Can we afford to develop the ground to gain IMG points?
The ground was always cited by Hood as being a big reason why we got into the financial mess in the first place (not withstanding the Harris compensation and poor decisions on recruitment that affected performances). Nothing has changed since then in terms of us being able to afford stadium upkeep and we now play in the second tier with the fraction of the income we had.
It seems as though Odsal is the only option – I just hope it doesn’t drag us down again.
I guess key question is what are the benefits of being primary leaseholder?
Upside
from a financial POV figure most often banded about for the rent was 70K. not sure if that is now split between us and the stockcars.
so for a 100k outlay this year (and assuming we are still paying full rent this year and not paying just upto point of sale, in which case the 100k figure is actually reduced by amount we save on rent).
then from next year our outlay will be 32k for five years to pay the extra 160k ( which may actually be covered by the stockcars now paying us rent as primary leaseholder.
after that effectively e don't have any outlay in regard to rent except the £1 peppercorn rent to Bradford council and get paid rental income from the stockcars.
Downside
we become liable for the 190k upkeep costs. Not sure where that figure has come from. part will be business rates(think figure of 100k per annum was bandied about for this)and rest will be maintenance but as I understood it we were already paying the maintenance costs anyway?. I suspect the 190k figure is inflated by RFL to make it look like a better deal for them.
the biggest gain as I see it is we can now make incremental improvements to stadium which we weren't going to do when we jwere ust renting from RFL. I wonder what the business rates are based on? for example would semi-permanently mothballing the roles lane end and reducing the capacity ( guessing we would still be 12k+) both reduce the business rates and improve our IMG score?
Plus the gnashing of teeth and ranting from usual sources is highly entertaining.
