Why did Cardiff City get planning permission so quickly?

[elbowpatches]

According to Sky Sports news a few minutes ago, Cradiff City have been granted planning permission to build a new stadium. Yesterday we were all revelling in the fact that there was opposition to the development and they would have to go through what we are going through. What happened? Can I assume they are building on the same site and don't have any of the Green Belt problems?

 

[Superphil]

Lets face it, anything being built in Cardiff will be a huge improvement over the rest of the city!

 

[Rich Suvner]

you only have to look around other league clubs to realise we're shafted down here when it comes to building the stadium - 50% less land to build a stadium on, very little outside the city not considered outstandingly beautifull, and virtually no brownfield sites.

 

[JJ McClure]

Saw that only teletext. Said it was gonna be a 60,000 seater. Ermm why? The millenium stadium is just down the road. No need to get ideas above your station, 20,000 will do. Quick planning permision is probably because its being built on a brown field site as opposed to an alleged AONB.

 

[Sam]

maybe there has been some dodgy moving of money into offshore bank accounts, mysteriously belonging to the planning permission men/women!

 

[Storer68]

brownfield site.

wru not happy about it given the level of debt they are carrying from the Millenium Stadium

 

[sparkie]

Surely it still may be called in for public enquiry anyway?

 

[Storer68]

Indeed it may. And in all probability it will. all they've done so far is get the council to agree to a new stadium - they're exactly where we are after the referendum in 1999............ and look how close we are to a new stadium four years later!"



Bluebirds stadium plan clears hurdle Aug 21 2003




Rhodri Evans, The Western Mail


SAM HAMMAM was last night a step nearer his goal of a new stadium for Cardiff City.

The Bluebirds boss's plans for a new stadium to replace Ninian Park were given the go-ahead by Cardiff Council's planning committee yesterday.

The council's planning committee were asked to consider three separate proposals put forward by the club.

Firstly there was the application for the stadium itself. The outline application proposed an all-seater stadium with up to 60,000 capacity. The club also proposed an athletics stadium, a foodstore and other shops, a health and fitness club, a hotel, a restaurant, petrol filling station and sports pitches.

The development would be accompanied by new car parking, landscaping and highway works.

The second proposal was for the redevelopment of the existing Ninian Park for housing.

A third application for land west of Leckwith Road set out plans for a new athletics stadium and sports pitches.

Mr Hammam, the Cardiff City chairman, said the new stadium was hugely important to the club. Before the meeting he said the club would be "in the deepest hell" if the scheme was blocked by the council.

"The most crucial thing about this stadium is its importance to everyone in Wales," he said. "What it will do to the emotional well-being of every Welsh person can not be estimated in the terms of billions of pounds this scheme will create if we really do the business.

"This is the only way forward for Cardiff City.

"This is important to the local community because of the level of employment through the new stadium. The new jobs will not come from outside, they will come from within the community.

"It will benefit local shops, local schools through football educational schemes, and the underprivileged.

"If we have the new stadium the money coming in to the city will be £25m a year. If we are in the Premiership, £60m a year. If we are challenging for Europe, £100m a year."

Mr Hammam also thought the scheme was key to ensuring that Cardiff was able to develop a steady crop of talented young players, which would pay dividends for Welsh soccer in the long term.

After the council planning committee gave the stadium the go-ahead, chairman Graham Hinchley said, "This is a landmark decision, which will support Cardiff City's aspirations to become a leading football club and bring significant economic benefits to the capital."

He said that subject to Welsh Assembly Government approval and legal agreements he expected planning consents to be issued.

Because of the retail element of the scheme the final go-ahead will have to come from the National Assembly. It has 21 days in which to decide whether to call in the application or allow the council to determine it.

 

[Bozza]

The whole thing is ridiculous - as has been said - the Mill. Stad is there and under-used. They want to host more events in it - so why do Cardiff not jump at the chance?

The answer, of course, is because attached to the planned new stadium will be a large retail and leisure development. Someone wants to line their pockets with the proceeds from this sale. Any idea who that might be ?!?

 

[Rich Suvner]

So Cardiff will become accustomed to 2 large empty stadiums as opposed to one!!! 60,000 is a joke. I'm sure Cardiff have more potential than most but come on...

On teletext it also says that the next step is for permission to be granted by the Welsh Assembly - so I guess they're in a similar situation to us, waiting on the govt.

 

[Citrus]

Yeah, but being the biggest team in Wales with such a large support, the stadium will clearly be accepted very quickly just to make Wales look good!

 

[Shizuoka Dolphin]

If we had the space and weren't covered in green or blue on every border, it wouldn't a problem.

 

[Storer68]

and presumably they need an athletics stadium to do the lap of honour.......................

 

[The Laughing Bluebird]

The whole thing is ridiculous - as has been said - the Mill. Stad is there and under-used. They want to host more events in it - so why do Cardiff not jump at the chance?

The answer, of course, is because attached to the planned new stadium will be a large retail and leisure development. Someone wants to line their pockets with the proceeds from this sale. Any idea who that might be ?!?

Bozza: The whole thing is not ridiculous at all. It makes perfect sense. The club needs its own stadium for obvious financial reasons.

The Millennium Stadium is indeed under-used. And very deep in debt. That is because the people who own it and run it (the Welsh Rugby Union) are incompetent fools.

Cardiff City's new stadium will be CARDIFF CITY'S NEW STADIUM. The landlords will be Cardiff City Football Club, not the Welsh Rugby Union.

Football clubs simply cannot make any real progress in this day and age if they have to pay large percentages of their crowd revenue to landlords. You lot should appreciate that more than supporters at any other club.

There are numerous other reasons why the Millennium Stadium would be an inappropriate venue for Cardiff City matches (segregation problems, policing difficulties, transport problems, clashes with other events, the impact on retail outlets in the city centre, the need for a permanent pitch, etc), but the main factor is undoubtedly finance.

In fact, the Welsh FA are reportedly very keen for CCFC's new stadium to be built so that Welsh international soccer matches can be played in it. The reason for their interest is that the WRU charges the WFA such high rental fees every time they use the Millennium Stadium.

By the way, the reports that the new stadium is going to hold 60,000 fans are not strictly correct. The initial building phase will see it house a capacity of 30,000.

The structure can be added to as time goes by if it is deemed to be necessary. Work on stage 2 would see the capacity increase to 38,600, stage 3 to 47,200, stage 4 to 52,600 and stage 5 to 58,000.

 

[Citrus]

How are there so many stages possible?

 

[The Laughing Bluebird]

How are there so many stages possible?

These new stadiums are like big Lego sets! You can add new bits to the original structure whenever you need to!

The initial 30,000 all-seater stadium is going to be a two-tier affair all around the ground. The further four stages would see extra tiers added to the other four sides of the stadium.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

This is "subject to Welsh Assembly Government approval and legal agreements".

The Albion "got planning permission" from the City Council in June 2002 - "subject to Government approval and legal agreements".

As we've since found out, there's more to building a new stadium than getting planning permission from the council. In the Albion case, John Prescott called the application in - meaning that he decided that he, not the council, would take the decision.

Things are slightly different in Wales, but I guess it's still possible that the Welsh Assembly Government might do the equivalent of "calling in" the application. That would lead to a long public inquiry. And Cardiff City's position would be just like ours.

We're further down the line, of course, because our Public Inquiry is almost over and the wording of the "legal agreements" has been agreed.

 

[El Presidente]

TLB as usual comes up with the facts.

 

[Sam]

it will make wales look 100% better!

 

[The Laughing Bluebird]

Things are slightly different in Wales, but I guess it's still possible that the Welsh Assembly Government might do the equivalent of "calling in" the application. That would lead to a long public inquiry. And Cardiff City's position would be just like ours.

You're right enough, the Welsh Assembly may well 'call in' the plans, but there are a few subtle differences between our situation and yours in that I don't believe we face anywhere near the same amount of opposition that you do.

For instance, the Welsh Assembly is little more than a glorified talking shop. Any inquiry they hold will be likely to be resolved a lot quicker than any inquiry the 'proper' government would hold, due to the fact that the Welsh Assembly has got little else to do! It is being suggested in the local press that the intervention of the Assembly would certainly delay the plans, but not significantly.

Also, there are very few opponents to CCFC's proposed scheme. The council votes on the subject yesterday were 8-1, 6-0 and 9-0 in favour of the various developments.

One major plus point is that the scheme has many powerful political supporters here. The Lord Mayor of Cardiff is 100% behind the new stadium, a number of prominent local councillors have spoken out in the club's support, and European Parliament president Neil Kinnock is a regular at Ninian Park these days, where he sits in the directors box alongside Rhodri Morgan (the leader of the Welsh Assembly) and Sam Hammam.....

The local press are also very supportive of the plans (South Wales Echo front page headline today: "Now Can We Have Our New Stadium Please?"), so things are very promising to say the least. The feeling here is that planning permission from the council was the major hurdle to overcome, and that's now been obtained, so we're looking good.