[Football] West Ham stadium details

[mwrpoole]

Has this been answered anywhere?

Don't know about advertising. On catering their is far too much tedious detail to read but I think it says LLDC organise the catering and keep the first £500k profit each year, thereafter split 70/30 in LLDC's favour.

 

[Easy 10]

They could have given WH the choice of paying more or no deal. Personally I'd have preferred it to be knocked down and have flats built. As it is, that will happen at Upton Park anyway.

But LLDC really were in no position to haggle over the deal - West Ham were holding all the cards. If Brady/Gold/Sullivan walked away, then to their eternal shame and embarrassment, LLDC would have an enormous, vastly expensive white elephant sat there rotting away.

Its pretty clear that LLDC are already shamed and embarrassed by this deal, just looking at the lengths they went to to try and stop all the details of it coming out (and all under some load of old guff about it being about "commercial sensitivity"). They've been exposed as a vain and incompetent body who have cost local taxpayers millions. They are not fit for purpose, and heads should be rolling over this whole fiasco.

 

[Easy 10]

They only contributed £14 Million towards the £270 Million costs in turning it into a football stadium as well.

But they're renting it.

If you were living in rented accommodation, would you stump up £15,000 to have someone come and build an extension ?

 

[beorhthelm]

They could have given WH the choice of paying more or no deal. Personally I'd have preferred it to be knocked down and have flats built. As it is, that will happen at Upton Park anyway.

redeveloping the site should always have been a plan, but that doesnt win you Olympic bids, they want to "leave a legacy" even if that is a great big white elephant. it cost too much to build, cost too much to re-purpose (ffs why wasnt the retractable seats in from the start? cost? oops), it'll probably cost too much to run and have to bailed out in a couple years.

 

[Surf's Up]

This is what happens when a government and local authority throw VAST amounts of public cash at an enormous vanity project for 2 weeks of running and jumping, with absolutely NO viable legacy in place afterwards.

Distasteful as it is, West Ham have merely taken advantage of that folly and brokered the best deal they could get. Theirs was the ONLY deal on the table whereby the LLDC could at least claw back a tiny proportion of the cataclysmic amount of money they spunked on that stadium. Short of tearing the whole thing down and building flats on the site (never gonna happen, the fallout from that would be just as bad if not worse), West Ham was the only deal in town.

LLDC were over a barrel, and have been brutally f****d over accordingly. Don't blame West Ham. Blame the egos and the politicians who gave this thing the go-ahead in the first place with no plans on what to do with a 60,000 seater athletics stadium once the Games had been and gone.

Hmmmmmmmm .... wasn't that the last Labour government

 

[Triggaaar]

redeveloping the site should always have been a plan, but that doesnt win you Olympic bids, they want to "leave a legacy"

They had to say there'd be a legacy, but there's no contractual obligation to carry that out is there?

 

[Acker79]

the alternative would be nothing. you have to bear in mind no one else had a better project to use it for. Orient wanted it for free, Spurs pretended to want it, athletics cant sustain the grounds they have, a few pop concerts and motor racing was all that was left, and clearly they didnt fancy the long term prospects of those plans. cant blame West Ham for taking the opportunity, especially having seen how well a similar situation worked for Man City. i reckon they should have been made to co-tenant with Orient, but other than that i dont see what more we could get out of it. around the world there are dozens of old unused Olympic venues, so this is better. if i seem apathetic its because i made my peace along time ago, as a former London resident i bloody paid for the stadium in the first place.

But if we left it vacant, we wouldn't have to pay 255m to convert it. So, the taxpayers are 270m out of pocket there. If West Ham aren't paying for matchday staff, concourses clearances, etc doesn't that mean the money for that comes via taxpayers? Putting us further out of pocket?

West Ham have will do what is right for them. I can live with that. But I want to see how they can claim getting taxpayers to pay the bulk of costs for what will effectively be their stadium, what their argument is. We've already paid for the olympic stadium, and we had the olympics. Probably a waste of money, but this deal doesn't do anything to remedy that. The rent of 2.5m will go on running costs, so it's not like it will start to pay off the cost of converting it, let alone the cost of building it in the first place.

I understand how they can say they "believe it is a "great deal" for the club" it absolutely is, and that's what their motivation should be. I don't see how they can say "and the taxpayer".

 

[Easy 10]

Hmmmmmmmm .... wasn't that the last Labour government

The Labour government backed the bid for London 2012, but its the local authority and Lord Coe who have the most to answer for. Coe opposed ANY plans that involved the removal of the running track at the stadium after the Olympic Games had finished.

 

[Triggaaar]

But LLDC really were in no position to haggle over the deal - West Ham were holding all the cards.

I can't claim to know, but I just don't believe that. You think Spurs were only pretending to want the stadium - fine, LLDC should have gone along with it and suggested they were the preferred bidder, as West Ham's proposal didn't look likely to be acceptable to the taxpayer. The fact is, West Ham would have paid more if they had to. They wouldn't have cut off their nose to spite their face.

 

[Triggaaar]

But they're renting it.

If you were living in rented accommodation, would you stump up £15,000 to have someone come and build an extension ?

If they were going to let me live there for 50 years for £1k a year, yes, I would.

 

[Acker79]

As for benefiting the tax payer - at least this way some money is being clawed back rather than the stadium lie empty

But it won't be, will it? Because the money they get from West Ham will be pumped into paying the wages of match day staff for west ham, upkeep of west ham's changing rooms, clearing the paths around the concourse in bad weather, the undersoil heating and floodlights, security, cleaning and pest control, generators, cctv, tannoys, advertising hoardings etc. with tax payers making up the short fall. Even if some of the 2.5m rent is left over, it will take a couple of hundred years to eat away at the money taxpayers paid to convert it before it even comes close to making a dent in the cost of building it.

 

[beorhthelm]

Coe opposed ANY plans that involved the removal of the running track at the stadium after the Olympic Games had finished.

to be fair, he was the front man for the entire project, not sure if we can tell if it was his personal opposition or that of the wider athletics community. they didnt/dont like the idea of stinkin' footballers on their stadium (hence no Wembley/FA permutations). a sensible approach (after the knock it down and build something usful option) would have been retractable stands from the start, but they insisted this wasnt possible and/or would cost more. because you see it was to be a grand athletics stadium after the games.

@triggaar, contractual obligation i have no idea, you know how we like to "play fair" even if it wasnt. what can they do, take it away from us?

 

[Gary Leeds]

But they're renting it.

If you were living in rented accommodation, would you stump up £15,000 to have someone come and build an extension ?

If I was looking to rent a property I would not expect the owners to make massive changes to the property that will cost way more than I would give them in rent (even over a 99 year lease taking inflation into account). But if I needed the extension for my own gain (and at a cost to the landlord) then yes I would expect to have to pay a percentage of the cost of it

 

[Easy 10]

But if we left it vacant, we wouldn't have to pay 255m to convert it. So, the taxpayers are 270m out of pocket there. If West Ham aren't paying for matchday staff, concourses clearances, etc doesn't that mean the money for that comes via taxpayers? Putting us further out of pocket?

West Ham have will do what is right for them. I can live with that. But I want to see how they can claim getting taxpayers to pay the bulk of costs for what will effectively be their stadium, what their argument is. We've already paid for the olympic stadium, and we had the olympics. Probably a waste of money, but this deal doesn't do anything to remedy that. The rent of 2.5m will go on running costs, so it's not like it will start to pay off the cost of converting it, let alone the cost of building it in the first place.

I understand how they can say they "believe it is a "great deal" for the club" it absolutely is, and that's what their motivation should be. I don't see how they can say "and the taxpayer".

There is certainly a big element of throwing good money after bad in all this. But what were the alternatives ?

1. Leave it empty, save for perhaps a couple of athletics meetings a year which would attract three men and a dog. In which case the annual maintenance costs would far exceed any revenue the stadium would make as an athletics venue.

2. Tear it down and redevelop the area for housing, thus completely writing off the £537m invested for a stadium that was used for 3 weeks. Quite apart from the enormous expense this course of action would incur, it would be an even more damning indictment on the whole project. Can't see the councillors or politicians voting for that somehow.

3. Just close it down and leave it to rot.

Given those bleak options, the spivs at West Ham were the only ones offering any kind of (eventual) income from this catastrophic unholy mess. The spin on this deal is entirely transparent - LLDC are mortified and fought hard to cover it all up. That pesky Freedom of Information Act has noused that up for them though, so the mindboggling cost of their rank incompetence has now been laid bare for all to see.

 

[Marshy]

Makes me wonder just what Spurs offered if West Hams was the best Deal !

 

[Easy 10]

If they were going to let me live there for 50 years for £1k a year, yes, I would.

If I was looking to rent a property I would not expect the owners to make massive changes to the property that will cost way more than I would give them in rent (even over a 99 year lease taking inflation into account). But if I needed the extension for my own gain (and at a cost to the landlord) then yes I would expect to have to pay a percentage of the cost of it

Which is exactly what West Ham have done. They've paid a token amount to have the stadium renovated for their needs, but they were not under any obligation to pay for it entirely, as they'll never own it. Its not theirs, it belongs to the local authority.

You could say morally they should have footed more if not all of the bill, particularly as they're paying buttons in rent. But since when has morals come into business ? They've taken full advantage of LLDC's desperate situation to do something, ANYTHING, with the thing they had built at such enormous costs. Theirs was the only deal on the table, they knew it, and so they exploited it to the maximum.

 

[Eeyore]

Does the LLDC have rights to use the stadium for the other 340 days of the year to raise additional revenues?

It does appear that way. West Ham United appear to have an agreement as a sort of priority tenant.

 

[Paul Reids Sock]

But it won't be, will it? Because the money they get from West Ham will be pumped into paying the wages of match day staff for west ham, upkeep of west ham's changing rooms, clearing the paths around the concourse in bad weather, the undersoil heating and floodlights, security, cleaning and pest control, generators, cctv, tannoys, advertising hoardings etc. with tax payers making up the short fall. Even if some of the 2.5m rent is left over, it will take a couple of hundred years to eat away at the money taxpayers paid to convert it before it even comes close to making a dent in the cost of building it.

But West Ham won't be the only people using it I thought?

There will still be concerts and such, there is also another minimum of £4million to come from sponsorship. they will use the facilities for a number of things. If the rent only covers the costs of floodlights and all the staff then I think they have still done well to get 2.5million for twenty odd days a year use and not giving up ownership of the stadium

 

[beorhthelm]

Makes me wonder just what Spurs offered if West Hams was the best Deal !

they offered enough to make sure Haringey got the White Hart project over the line.

 

[Easy 10]

to be fair, he was the front man for the entire project, not sure if we can tell if it was his personal opposition or that of the wider athletics community. they didnt/dont like the idea of stinkin' footballers on their stadium (hence no Wembley/FA permutations). a sensible approach (after the knock it down and build something usful option) would have been retractable stands from the start, but they insisted this wasnt possible and/or would cost more. because you see it was to be a grand athletics stadium after the games.

Coe was toeing the IOC's party line that if London was to get the Games, then one of the conditions of the "Legacy" was that the running track would absolutely have to remain in place, so ultimately it would still have to be usable as an athletics stadium. Coe was obviously desperate to win that bid (quite a feather in the cap for him), so of course he was always going to fully oppose the removal of the running track, which he did. Despite questions at the time being raised about the financial viability of maintaining such a humungous stadium primarily for athletics.

These legitimate concerns were all swept under the carpet though during the whole big hoo-hah of us being awarded the Games.