I discovered this today. I guess it wasn’t hidden, but given the obvious interest it would have to fans I find it strange that nobody to the best of my knowledge anyway makes greater efforts to share it. And before some pompous twit comes on and tells me it’s on the Trust’s official site, let’s not kid ourselves. Nobody uses it.
These are the minutes from the meeting on the 16th of this month between THFC & THST (Tottenham Hotspur Supporter’s Trust).
The minutes cover the issues of the moment so predominantly The Stadium, Redschnapps calling fans idiots, Transfers and Ticketing.
For clarity and to lessen the likelihood of comments degenerating into a bun fight, I’m splitting the minutes into three parts this evening so if you want to whine about Ticketing for example, you might see the benefit of waiting a little.
In order that no spin or whatever is put on these notes by me, I’m simply going to bullet point them.
Stadium
- The Club is very busy behind the scenes trying to make the NDP viable. There are two dedicated people working 24/7on the stadium project and a committee of 15 meets weekly to discuss progress. The Club is seeking public sector grants to help reduce the costs and in light of this has appointed Savills to explore this avenue.
- The Club is carrying out market research to ascertain what the appetite for corporate hospitality is as well as considering a moderate increase in capacity.
- At the same time the legal challenge regarding the Olympic Stadium bid process continues. The club should know the results of their challenge by the end of July. There are two reasons for this; (i) Uncertainty remains that NDP will ever become viable and (ii) Genuine concern that the bidding process was unfair.
- With regards to other Haringey locations DL confirmed that a site near Tottenham Hale was considered but, due to the amount of property that would need acquiring, this would have been extremely time consuming and in all likelihood just as expensive as NDP with a further need for seeking planning permission from the local authorities.
- With a capital cost of £250-£300m it is just not viable right now.
- Re funding, the Club has not gone to Market yet re Naming Rights and the Supermarket deal is on hold.
- The Section 106 agreement has been agreed but is not yet exchanged.
- Ultimately, despite the huge investment this would be from THFC in the local community, there is no public sector money being made available.
- No timeframe can be put on how long this may take to resolve one way or the other.
- BK asked what supporters can do to assist THFC? DL advised that it would be beneficial for THFC supporters to lobby David Lammy, Boris Johnson, the Sports Minister and the Local Authority to constructively point out the benefits that would accrue to the local community from providing some Public Sector grant support to the stadium project. Ultimately this should be a Private/Public Sector project so all pressure exerted on the decision makers would be very welcome.
- DL advised that he has no preference re stadium he just wants a stadium solution whatever that may be.
DL =Daniel Levy and BK=Bernie Kingsly (Trust Board Chairman).
Maybe my business degree alludes me here, but the 250-300 capital cost of the NDP, thought it was around 400-500 before??
As does my spelling, eludes*
Harold, I am outraged.
As you are aware, I am a regular contributor to your occasionally excellent blog. ;-)
Since you’ve moved to this server, you have generally followed a theme with the header picture, namely a comedic type from the distant past. However, I eagerly checked your latest offering, only to espy the decidedly unfunny, nay, totally humourless Lance Percival.
Apart from one mildly amusing line in Carry on Cruising, I can think of no other worthwhile contribution to even raise a titter.
Please ensure there are no future pictures of said individual, instead you should be looking at encouraging some of your younger readers to explore the genius of Randy Mandy or Sex-Starved Hettie, both offerings from the godlike Dick Emery. Also perhaps a Ted Ray, Arthur Askey, Will Hay or more recently Willie Rushton.
Come on Mr Hotspur, sort it out.
Sir,
I am shocked. I’ve just read my Gas bill.
Anyway your claims. Whilst I agree Mr Percival was a bit rubbish, he did not only star in the seminal ‘What A Whopper’ but … he & Jeremy Lloyd wrote ‘Whodunnit!’ a show I was addicted to as a nipper.
And Jeremy Lloyd went on to pen Captain Beaky sir!
Yours in arrears,
Harumpph Hotspur QC+Mini Bar.
lance percival ! used to work near his house in fulham and managed to “exchange” greetings with him one fine morning.miserable stuck up cnut
Good old Hissing Sid.
I was a Whodunnit addict too.
committee of 15 every week – made me choke on my cornflakes
what the fuck are they discussing? they’ve got planning consent for something theydesigned FFS
typical weekly conversation –
Levy – still going to cost me 300 million?
architect & builder – yep
Levy – see you next week
Are they saying a modest expansion of WHL is also on offer and if so how modest? I’d be happy if WHL was increased to 40-45k that would be more than enough to give some season tickets to those on a waiting list and give members/casual fans a chance to get to games. Also it would still retain the intimate feel and famed electric atmosphere. Plus the transport improvement issues would not be so pressing. We don’t have to copy Le Arse with a 60k flashy corporate bowl designed to fleece as much money from the fans as possible. I guess the cost to redevelop as well as the logistics of doing it while the stadium is in use makes this idea wishful thinking on my part.
As far as market research into corporate demand goes I would guess that comes down to whether the caviar with smoked salmon blini and canapé munching brigade can be arsed with the journey as it is now.. so probably not going to be that much extra demand I would have thought.
As we all suspected the legal action over the Stratford decision is not in the hope to overturn it but to try and extract some regeneration/infrastructure investment for the area from the various public authorities. When you look at London fair enough East London has been a deprived area but there has been loads of money spent in the area for some time when you consider Docklands, Eurostar Freight and potentially passenger Terminal at Stratford, Jubilee Extension, not to mention Olympics and now Cross Rail. Surely there could be some relatively modest North-South infrastructure investment as East-West directions have had quite a lot already.
Apologies for over my lack of brevity!
With the new Financial Fair Play rules the game is all about how much income you can generate. We are £100 million behind the Goons, Man U etc so we therefore need a fleecing stadium to compete, anything less keeps us in the second tier.
Sugar Daddies are not allowed after next season.
dont understand why we should be thinking of a modest capacity if thats the case we will never be a big club the capacity of white hart lane is not very good we need the revenue from the new ground to compete with the big guns like united chelsea and the gooners what we need is a sugar daddy from the midde east like city or russian billionaire to fund this project
Is that you Mr Lewis?
We have an English non tax paying billionaire already, but he’s waiting for the government (that’s me and you) to spend some of the budget of one of the poorest bouroughs in London to make him more money.
I think this may drag.
I think that’s likely the case along with us hanging out to get some traction with the appeal on the Olympic Stadium. The more pressure that can be brought to bear, the better liklihood of some public money being thrown in, either as grants or by way of transport infrastructure accomodations etc.
We might make a case to get our bid costs covered if we can demonstrate the bidding process was unfair and that case is strengthened by the perception that we have no viable alternatives. It may also highlight the lack of support Lammy is giving and pressure Boris to try to intervene and drive some sort of gesture based incentive.
Tho’ it seems unlikely, the whole decision might be up for review considering that WHU have gone down with the albatross stadium around their necks and the chances are we are looking at a derelict slum in its early stages. All parties might just see what a wanker Coe is and what an atrocious decision was enacted. That doesn’t mean we go back, but it ups the pressure again for some public dosh being put into the mix.
We must get at least a 60K stadium on the go soon to stay in the hunt long term…..