: Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:10 pm  

mat wrote:

maybe not financially but we are contributing the use of the land, which whilst the council owns the freehold we are the leaseholders for the next 120 years which is a lot longer than the lifetime of the proposed buildings. Council can do nothing with odsal without our agreement as long as we stay within terms of lease.

council on other hand need the money from sale of richard dunn land to finance building of new sports Centre. If they dont sell richard dunn site they've got to find a large sum of money to build a sports Centre. By combining the two sites it works out cheaper.

You keep saying this Mat, but it doesn't make sense.

The council paid you millions for you to take responsibility for the land.

You're now losing money maintaining it.

So it's hardly a sacrifice to "contribute the use of the land" is it?

: Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:27 pm  

aj cougar wrote:

You keep saying this Mat, but it doesn't make sense.

The council paid you millions for you to take responsibility for the land.

You're now losing money maintaining it.

So it's hardly a sacrifice to "contribute the use of the land" is it?

why does it have to be a sacrifice? We're contributing something which is necessary for the project to proceed. by doing so and merging the odsal/richard dunn sites, The dunns site can be sold and the money used to build the new stand/sports Centre. everybody wins ( unless your only interested in sports facilities in keighley ). If the council go it alone and replace richard dunn they cant sell the site so they have to find the money to build a new sports Centre. If bulls go it alone we have to find money to build a new stand.

: Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:27 pm  

mat wrote:

maybe not financially but we are contributing the use of the land, which whilst the council owns the freehold we are the leaseholders for the next 120 years which is a lot longer than the lifetime of the proposed buildings. Council can do nothing with odsal without our agreement as long as we stay within terms of lease.

You ( and a lot of others ) seem to think that the development is owed to the Bulls when it's only 4 years ago that you took the £5m and peppercorn lease to maintain the ground the yourself. If want to talk about sticking to the lease then ......

council on other hand need the money from sale of richard dunn land to finance building of new sports Centre. If they dont sell richard dunn site they've got to find a large sum of money to build a sports Centre. By combining the two sites it works out cheaper.

Seriously the council would be able to build a replacement Dunn's at Dunn's if they wanted to. You need them far more than they need you unfortunately.

: Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:36 pm  

Blotto wrote:

No it isn't its that Council's by nature are fiscally incompentent, BMDC being one of the worst in that aspect!

Bradford council accounts are pretty solid and they have significant funds tucked away ( some of which are actually identified already to be put towards OSV ) Justification for spending more is a completely different issue.

How many Ilkley residents would advocate spending Council Tax payers money on OSV at the expense of more local schemes ( apart from the obvious one of course ) ??

If you want to throw stones then maybe you should look a little closer to home at a successful, private company that is unable and unwilling to contribute to it's own future whilst blaming all and sundry for that situation.

: Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:13 pm  

BM wrote:

Seriously the council would be able to build a replacement Dunn's at Dunn's if they wanted to. You need them far more than they need you unfortunately.

I dont doubt that they could build a new dunns if they had to but surely it makes more financial sense to sell the dunns site and build the sports Centre on bulls site using money raised by sale to finance build. hence less cost to taxpayer. Im not saying we dont need council just that there are benefits to both parties from merging the two sites.

: Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:54 pm  

BM wrote:

maybe you should look a little closer to home at a successful, private company that is unable and unwilling to contribute to it's own future whilst blaming all and sundry for that situation.

Nah, that's rubbish. Bulls' current admin cannot be expected to accept responsibility for a set of circumstances that originated before the majority of them were born.

: Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:54 am  

BM wrote:

How many Ilkley residents would advocate spending Council Tax payers on OSV at the expense of more local schemes ( apart the obvious one of course ??

Personally I think it should be spent on Cas' new ground.

: Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:17 am  

af wrote:

Nah, that's rubbish. Bulls' current admin cannot be expected to accept responsibility for a set of circumstances that originated before the majority of them were born.

Surely the current board, minus that bloke who used to be your chairman, are responsible for the current situation? i.e. saddled with high running costs.

: Fri Jul 25, 2008 2:01 pm  

aj cougar wrote: Surely the current board, minus that bloke who used to be your chairman, are responsible for the current situation? i.e. saddled with high running costs. What was the alternative though? The council had the club over a barrel. I posted the link previously, here it is again. Caisley's comments followed information received by the Club from the Council's Chief Executive that Officers will now recommend to the city's Councillors that: 1. The Council will do no more than the "bare minimum" in terms of work to the stadium over the next 18 years of the Council's agreement with the Club. 2. This means spending in the region of £600,000 on health and safety works over the next 2 years on "minor matters." No money will be spent on the bars and hospitality areas in the stadium, which will remain closed to the public nor on anything which does not constitute an urgent health and safety problem. 3. When the only covered stand within the stadium has served its useful life and is no longer safe, in 2 years time, it will not be replaced and those parts of the stadium which are no longer fit for use will then be closed off, reducing the capacity from 25,000 to around 14,000. 4. The Council's only obligation is to provide a stadium big enough to be used by 14,000 spectators, which was the Bulls' most recent average "gate" at Odsal. 5. The Council will take steps to section off the area of contaminated land adjacent to the stadium and carry out work to remedy the problem. Commenting on these proposals, Caisley said, "Over the last 13 years the Council has successfully turned what could have been a profit-making opportunity into a huge loss-producing asset. Instead of steadily improving the stadium year on year and earning income from it, the Council has allowed it to fall into disrepair, like many other parts of the city. We are now being told that instead of a fabulous, new stadium, which was supposed to be a major plank of the city's bid for Capital of Culture status, will be slowly left to rot and become an eyesore, that its capacity will be reduced to 14,000 and that the Club and its supporters will just have to lump it. It's amazing how this sort of news is always released when the local elections are out of the way. Such a course of action could well result in the Club losing its Super League status and would certainly cause us to suffer considerable losses, which we would be obliged to reclaim from the Council. Bullseye identified Bulls' missed opportunity as coming when they failed to move in at BPA. Since then, they've been battling against the circumstances that are incredibly deep-rooted. Here's a hypothetical - had the M1 and the mainline railway been put through Bradford in stead of Leeds, the land VP stands on would have been worth much more and City would have had more incentive to have moved to Odsal. Had the refuse under the main stand caught alight during the night rather than during a game, many lives would have been saved which would obvously be by far and away the main benefit - however, the club would not have had the huge emotional tie to the ground that has proved a major impediment to any move south. I give just two examples but there are many more. Whatever part individual Bulls officials have played in the club's woes, it's minor compared to the effect of circumstances utterly beyond their control.

aj cougar wrote: Surely the current board, minus that bloke who used to be your chairman, are responsible for the current situation? i.e. saddled with high running costs. What was the alternative though? The council had the club over a barrel. I posted the link previously, here it is again. Caisley's comments followed information received by the Club from the Council's Chief Executive that Officers will now recommend to the city's Councillors that: 1. The Council will do no more than the "bare minimum" in terms of work to the stadium over the next 18 years of the Council's agreement with the Club. 2. This means spending in the region of £600,000 on health and safety works over the next 2 years on "minor matters." No money will be spent on the bars and hospitality areas in the stadium, which will remain closed to the public nor on anything which does not constitute an urgent health and safety problem. 3. When the only covered stand within the stadium has served its useful life and is no longer safe, in 2 years time, it will not be replaced and those parts of the stadium which are no longer fit for use will then be closed off, reducing the capacity from 25,000 to around 14,000. 4. The Council's only obligation is to provide a stadium big enough to be used by 14,000 spectators, which was the Bulls' most recent average "gate" at Odsal. 5. The Council will take steps to section off the area of contaminated land adjacent to the stadium and carry out work to remedy the problem. Commenting on these proposals, Caisley said, "Over the last 13 years the Council has successfully turned what could have been a profit-making opportunity into a huge loss-producing asset. Instead of steadily improving the stadium year on year and earning income from it, the Council has allowed it to fall into disrepair, like many other parts of the city. We are now being told that instead of a fabulous, new stadium, which was supposed to be a major plank of the city's bid for Capital of Culture status, will be slowly left to rot and become an eyesore, that its capacity will be reduced to 14,000 and that the Club and its supporters will just have to lump it. It's amazing how this sort of news is always released when the local elections are out of the way. Such a course of action could well result in the Club losing its Super League status and would certainly cause us to suffer considerable losses, which we would be obliged to reclaim from the Council. Bullseye identified Bulls' missed opportunity as coming when they failed to move in at BPA. Since then, they've been battling against the circumstances that are incredibly deep-rooted. Here's a hypothetical - had the M1 and the mainline railway been put through Bradford in stead of Leeds, the land VP stands on would have been worth much more and City would have had more incentive to have moved to Odsal. Had the refuse under the main stand caught alight during the night rather than during a game, many lives would have been saved which would obvously be by far and away the main benefit - however, the club would not have had the huge emotional tie to the ground that has proved a major impediment to any move south. I give just two examples but there are many more. Whatever part individual Bulls officials have played in the club's woes, it's minor compared to the effect of circumstances utterly beyond their control.

: Fri Jul 25, 2008 2:30 pm  

af wrote:

Had the refuse under the main stand caught alight during the night rather than during a game, many lives would have been saved which would obvously be by far and away the main benefit - however, the club would not have had the huge emotional tie to the ground that has proved a major impediment to any move south.

Oh yes the main benefit was obviously the 56 people's lives who would have been saved but while we have a chance let's not forget to mention that there would have benefits to the Bulls as well.

I may be accused if being too emotive ( and there's good reason ) with regard to any mention of the fire but City fans were tied to VP before the fire too. It's the club's history. You know much like the Bulls fans who refused to attend or the ones who complained about every little thing while spending two seasons at VP.