British Land - New Stadium

Bearded Shrimper said:

is doing something so big more likely to succeed than something smaller? or is it just that we need the money?

Click to expand...

British Land will want maximum returns for stumping up money for the stadium.

Chocolardo said:

You always make it sound like you where disappointed personally because Ron Martin didn't want to work wth you.

Yes i live in the real world also, I understand it will take work to get through development of this scale, but what do you think the development team would of being doing for the past year? Sitting on there arse hoping to get approval? Obviously you know that they would of been working closely with all relevant parties to get a design that suits everyone and most likely to get approved.

Take the chip of your shoulder and start looking forward rather than in the past. Mistake have been made yes and bad decisions etc, but this stadium will happen and we are getting closer and I besiege have the right people in place currently

Click to expand...

It's a fans forum and so everyone has their own right to voice their own opinion and Sherif H has every right to voice his opinion on a mistake especially when he can offer a professional opinion. I personally found his views of interest.

Sounds like you are very bitter that he doesn't believe the plans to be as good as they should be.

WESTY_SUFC said:

It's a fans forum and so everyone has their own right to voice their own opinion and Sherif H has every right to voice his opinion on a mistake especially when he can offer a professional opinion. I personally found his views of interest.

Sounds like you are very bitter that he doesn't believe the plans to be as good as they should be.

Click to expand...

Thanks Westy. Nice to think some of my views are of interest and help to unravel this web of confusion.

My main gripe is that this vicious circle is snowballing - each time we are forced to upscale the enabling development to keep our development partners interested (which in turn, in theory, enables us to deliver the most aesthetically pleasing and largest stadium we can), the case for obtaining planning permission becomes all the more difficult (and costly) to justify...not just from a planning policy standpoint, but the extent of public consultation which then needs to be undertaken.

Even if we ultimately get planning approval for any updated scheme, each modification adds yet more time to the already 10-year programme we have sat through thus far.

Out of interest Sherif how would you have got the project through any quicker. How would you deal with the High Street or the increase in traffic around Fossetts. Do you think we would be better off at another site. Is that even possible.

By the way I know you think we should develop RH but thats not going to happen, whilst Ron is in charge

rigsby said:

Out of interest Sherif how would you have got the project through any quicker. How would you deal with the High Street or the increase in traffic around Fossetts. Do you think we would be better off at another site. Is that even possible.

By the way I know you think we should develop RH but thats not going to happen, whilst Ron is in charge

Click to expand...

Actually, redevelopment of RH isn't my personal preference, but I have in the past stated it isn't the impossible task some have suggested it may be. Realistically, it would always be more cost effective to move to a new site.

I can't in any way guarantee I would have the golden ticket to progress matters any quicker, however what I have said and continue to say is that every time we change our plans and re-submit a planning application, it has to go through the same exhaustive cycle of assessment, consultation and rejection/modification, which costs a huge amount of money and time, and probably displaces the noses of many key stakeholders.

The simple point is this - in theory, if the stadium development wasn't so architecturally intense (i.e. if we settled on a much simpler design which provided us with a functional new stadium, as opposed to an architectural masterpiece), we would be able to reduce the scale of retail/commercial development at FF, which would, in turn, soften the path for the planning application to be approved more readily, as the Club would face less opposition from disgruntled High Street retailers and wouldn't rub the planning committee up the wrong way (who ultimately have to apply planning policy when making their decisions, and out-of-town retail which detracts from an already dying High Street isn't likely to be high on their agenda).

Not sure about the merits of another site, but I would say that the bronze age burial site, topography and surrounding road infrastructure don't really combine to make FF a top choice for any stadium.

A 70,000 sq ft increase in the retail content is not going to win over the councillors who want to protect the dying High Street.
If true this revised scheme will not have an easyride through to a "resolution to grant" consent let alone RM agreeing a new S.106 Agreement with the Council.

Reckon I'll be in the West Stand for a few more years!!

There's a lovely large plot of land north of the A13 at Bournes Green.....

i believe that is earmarked by the council as a potential new borough cemetery.

the new and even bigger design does seem a little over ambitious given everything that's gone before.
Is it just a financing issue? to me it would be most logical to have an integrated training ground and stadium, capacity of about 20,000 on and around the current training ground and sod all the other bits with the money coming from selling the Roots Hall site for development, ideally as residential.
Is that not possible?
my problem then is that it'll be bloody hard to get to the damn stadium, but when have fans ever some into these equations?

Bearded Shrimper said:

the new and even bigger design does seem a little over ambitious given everything that's gone before.
Is it just a financing issue? to me it would be most logical to have an integrated training ground and stadium, capacity of about 20,000 on and around the current training ground and sod all the other bits with the money coming from selling the Roots Hall site for development, ideally as residential.
Is that not possible?
my problem then is that it'll be bloody hard to get to the damn stadium, but when have fans ever some into these equations?

Click to expand...

I wouldnt be surprised if its over planned so that we can compromise and reduce the plan to get it agreed.

As for being hard to get to, tt wont be too bad, driving into southend having to contend with the Prittlewell bottleneck will be a pain. For trains its not that much further to walk from Prittlewell.

What should be far better is the parking though.

Bearded Shrimper said:

the new and even bigger design does seem a little over ambitious given everything that's gone before.
Is it just a financing issue? to me it would be most logical to have an integrated training ground and stadium, capacity of about 20,000 on and around the current training ground and sod all the other bits with the money coming from selling the Roots Hall site for development, ideally as residential.
Is that not possible?
my problem then is that it'll be bloody hard to get to the damn stadium, but when have fans ever some into these equations?

Click to expand...

Yes, it's totally a financing issue. The new stadium has to be built first, therefore somebody has to stump up the funds to build it, even if they can recoup it by knocking RH into residential housing afterwards. Who is prepared to pay many, many millions to fund the stadium in the hope the residential housing sell for a profit ? If I recall, Galliard/Barratts paid about £15m for Upton Park, which was probably worth the game. Saying that, West Ham probably didn't need fortunes, as they were virtually handed a stadium on a plate. That was probably enough to pay for the minimal conversion that they did to make it feel like home.

Bearded Shrimper said:

the new and even bigger design does seem a little over ambitious given everything that's gone before.
Is it just a financing issue? to me it would be most logical to have an integrated training ground and stadium, capacity of about 20,000 on and around the current training ground and sod all the other bits with the money coming from selling the Roots Hall site for development, ideally as residential.
Is that not possible?
my problem then is that it'll be bloody hard to get to the damn stadium, but when have fans ever some into these equations?

Click to expand...

The problem is that as far as I know the club do not own Roots Hall and has not done for years.

If a new stadium ever gets built the club will unfortunately not own that either, so will not benefit from any of the revenue streams the residential, retail, cinema etc that will be generated from any external development.

In the meantime (unless I'm doing something wrong) the plans are still not on the council website. How long do they have before they should be available?

The planning application has to be validated within 10 working days - assuming that it was hand delivered to the Council late on the Friday of the bank holiday weekend, that should have been up at close of play last night. I would imagine it will be on the weekly list of applications this week (it wasn't on last week's) and the plans should be up sometime within the next week.

I've just sent a tweet to SBC planning department to ask the same question and will report back if/when they reply!

This is interesting:

http://www.halsteadgazette.co.uk/ne..._which_could_jeopardise_proposed_new_stadium/

A line in there states Ron is in 'final discussions' with Southend planners. So the planning application, if this is to be believed, has not actually been submitted yet. Another lie...

I don't read it as that.....

Jai said:

This is interesting:

http://www.halsteadgazette.co.uk/ne..._which_could_jeopardise_proposed_new_stadium/

A line in there states Ron is in 'final discussions' with Southend planners. So the planning application, if this is to be believed, has not actually been submitted yet. Another lie...

Click to expand...

Not necessarily. I would caution against over analysing the phraseology of a local journalist. He may be either unaware of the submission if he is relying on the Council planning site, or he may be inferring that submitted plans count as the final stage of discussions given the ensuing process which may lead to changes to the plans prior to approval.

Spaceman Spiff said:

Not necessarily. I would caution against over analysing the phraseology of a local journalist. He may be either unaware of the submission if he is relying on the Council planning site, or he may be inferring that submitted plans count as the final stage of discussions given the ensuing process which may lead to changes to the plans prior to approval.

Click to expand...

True but it does seem a little fishy that the plans aren't up on the Southend BC website almost three weeks after submission.

My bet is they have been physically submitted but there's one or two wrinkles to iron out before they are validated. Which seems a little surprising given we are supposedly dealing with extremely capable developers here.

The journalist is the paper's chief reporter so she will certainly be aware of the submission.

Jai said:

This is interesting:

http://www.halsteadgazette.co.uk/ne..._which_could_jeopardise_proposed_new_stadium/

A line in there states Ron is in 'final discussions' with Southend planners. So the planning application, if this is to be believed, has not actually been submitted yet. Another lie...

Click to expand...

Not sure you should accuse Ron of lying on a clearly outdated report in the Halstead gazette. The discussions will continue right up until the day of the hearing.

I had to withdraw my own planning application, at my expense, with less than 3 weeks before D-day because someone in the Council forgot to send a form to the environment agency to be rubber stamped. I even offered to take the form myself that day and get it signed up at Norwich but simple problem solving wasn't allowed as its not to be encouraged amongst Council staff.

rigsby said:

Not sure you should accuse Ron of lying on a clearly outdated report in the Halstead gazette. The discussions will continue right up until the day of the hearing.

I had to withdraw my own planning application, at my expense, with less than 3 weeks before D-day because someone in the Council forgot to send a form to the environment agency to be rubber stamped. I even offered to take the form myself that day and get it signed up at Norwich but simple problem solving wasn't allowed as its not to be encouraged amongst Council staff.

Click to expand...

Well perhaps lie was a bit strong but given all the false dawns over the years, I reserve the right to be extremely skeptical.

The article is three hours old (outdated?) and is from the Echo (the Halstead Gazette has simply syndicated the content as all Newsquest Essex websites inexplicably do from time to time - it's just the link I got from a Google Alert). And you're right, it could be a council issue rather than a Ron issue but again given the history, well, you know the rest.

But of course I hope you're right. The proof in the pudding will be when the application will actually be validated (until which point of course there is no application number and therefore will not be a hearing). I continue to wait, 18 days and counting.