Who Should have paid for the Ricoh site Clean-up? (1 Viewer)

grego_gee · May 31, 2013

Some things just don't seem right, it never seemed right to me that CCC stepped in and bailed out ACL with Council funds. We will see how that stands up now challenged.
Another thing that has always bugged me is who should have paid for the Gasworks clean-up? Its normal for the polluter to pay, in the case of the Ricoh site I believe it was an old gasworks?
Commonly called "Town Gas", I'm not sure if historically it was council owned before progressing to British Gas?...
Could the council actually have been an original owner and polluter? In any case if BGas left without cleaning up it was a hot potato that the council as planning authority didn't want lying around!
In the final accounts of he Stadium build I believe the decontamination is shown as costing £17m - nearly double the £10m that CCC put in as equity investment!
There is a counter balancing £17m shown as coming from Tescos in addition to the sum £50m odd they paid to purchase the land.
To me that seems dubious, if Tescos were prepared to pay £67m to acquire the land it is political manipulation to say they paid for the cleanup!

imp:

James Smith · May 31, 2013

grego_gee said:
Some things just don't seem right, it never seemed right to me that CCC stepped in and bailed out ACL with Council funds. We will see how that stands up now challenged.
Another thing that has always bugged me is who should have paid for the Gasworks clean-up? Its normal for the polluter to pay, in the case of the Ricoh site I believe it was an old gasworks?
Commonly called "Town Gas", I'm not sure if historically it was council owned before progressing to British Gas?...
Could the council actually have been an original owner and polluter? In any case if BGas left without cleaning up it was a hot potato that the council as planning authority didn't want lying around!
In the final accounts of he Stadium build I believe the decontamination is shown as costing £17m - nearly double the £10m that CCC put in as equity investment!
There is a counter balancing £17m shown as coming from Tescos in addition to the sum £50m odd they paid to purchase the land.
To me that seems dubious, if Tescos were prepared to pay £67m to acquire the land it is political manipulation to say they paid for the cleanup!

imp:

I'll leave out the Gasworks clean up because I don't feel qualified to answer it. But why would you not think it right that the council bought the mortgage to a business that they are major shareholders in, to help that business when threatened by a tenant who was a repeat defaulter on their rent? If there was a council owned swimming baths/leisure centre that was under the same threat would you not find it right there as well if they stepped in?

CCFC PimpRail · May 31, 2013

You can't really criticise the Council when they were the ones who saved the whole project from the dreamers who wanted a new stadium but couldn't finance it...? The "this can be the UK's national stadium" idea seems to have been quickly forgotten about (along with the sliding roof and removable pitch...).

grego_gee · May 31, 2013

Thanks for your response JS (I was beginning to think I'd been sent to Coventry!)
I am still hoping someone will come back with an insight into the history of the gasworks, either from personal knowledge or archives. Particularly in respect of whether or not it was ever council owned/run.
I don't want to deviate from the main topic of the thread, but my concern about the bailout (and CCC investing in private companies at all) is instinctive from a career in Local and Health authorities. It's challenged in the HC now so should come out in the wash anyway.

imp:

the rumpo kid · May 31, 2013

gas works clean up was paid for by an E.U. grant for urban regeneration (ie brown belt building)

grego_gee · May 31, 2013

CCFC PimpRail said:
You can't really criticise the Council when they were the ones who saved the whole project from the dreamers who wanted a new stadium but couldn't finance it...? The "this can be the UK's national stadium" idea seems to have been quickly forgotten about (along with the sliding roof and removable pitch...).

Well I guess that's what the council intended us to think! Thank you council!
But if they put in £10m when they should have already paid £17m for the cleanup didn't they really save £7m?
Tescos footed most of the bill anyway, they put in £67m! (ish) So perhaps we should be saying Thank you Tescos!
Perhaps the council were really taking advantage from being the planning authority, saying, pay for the cleanup and we'll let you have a site for £50m and give you PP?
Even if there is no history that they were a past owner, the site was big blot on the CCC landscape and it was a planning issue they had to deal with in some way!
I presume only they could say why BGas did not pay for the cleanup?

imp:

grego_gee · May 31, 2013

the rumpo kid said:
gas works clean up was paid for by an E.U. grant for urban regeneration (ie brown belt building)

Where did you get that from? I can't see any mention of that in the completion report.

imp:

Jack Griffin · May 31, 2013

grego_gee said:
Some things just don't seem right, it never seemed right to me that CCC stepped in and bailed out ACL with Council funds.

Its alright by me & I'm a Coventry City Council Tax payer, unlike yourself.

wingy · May 31, 2013

when the time is right Greggo there really are Salient points to debate but I won't use them to defend the utter failure that are SISU as part of the exit strategy .Utter Imbaciles for not setting this agenda at entry. They are stigmatic to this club now and its been growing and festering for two seasons at least .There really have been some clever hands played, it may appear to be greed but there have been social benfits.

grego_gee · May 31, 2013

Jack Griffin said:
Its alright by me & I'm a Coventry City Council Tax payer, unlike yourself.

Yeh, you got me there! I'm not and you are.
I did actually work for them though!
Still, I feel reassured now I know you are happy with it.

imp:

grego_gee · May 31, 2013

the rumpo kid said:
gas works clean up was paid for by an E.U. grant for urban regeneration (ie brown belt building)

Here is a snapshot of the completion report.

imp:

Broken Hearted Sky Blue · May 31, 2013

Im buying a house at the moment wondered why it was taking so long now I know. The solicitors have to find out who originally bought the land and for how much how much did they borrow and from whom,who built it where did they get the money if it was from family members then Ill get my solicitors to tell the owners that I now withdraw my offer and that I want the property for free. I'm so pleased that I'm on this site its now going to save me a fortune dont like the property anyway so I think I'll just sell it win win.:claping hands::claping hands:
:claping hands:

fernandopartridge · May 31, 2013

grego_gee said:
Where did you get that from? I can't see any mention of that in the completion report.

imp:

There was a £10m ERDF grant, which was match funded by the council with their own £10m. I'm not sure how the council demonstrated their own match investment.

fernandopartridge · May 31, 2013

grego_gee said:
Here is a snapshot of the completion report.

imp:

It's the ERDF line in the report

blend · May 31, 2013

Used to work for them & doesn't like them. Obvious really.

lordsummerisle · May 31, 2013

I thought that all the clean-up work on the site was paid for by us?

The council didn't really get involved in the whole failure of the building the Arena until well after it was decontaminated did they?

Nick · May 31, 2013

It was good when the gas tower got blown up though!

lordsummerisle · May 31, 2013

Nick said:
It was good when the gas tower got blown up though!

Muse could have done a gig for that one!

grego_gee · May 31, 2013

wingy said:
when the time is right Greggo there really are Salient points to debate but I won't use them to defend the utter failure that are SISU as part of the exit strategy .Utter Imbaciles for not setting this agenda at entry. They are stigmatic to this club now and its been growing and festering for two seasons at least .There really have been some clever hands played, it may appear to be greed but there have been social benfits.

You know me wingy! I'm not one for crucifying the hand that feeds me!

Still it will all come out in the wash, no point in raising it after that!

imp:

grego_gee · May 31, 2013

blend said:
Used to work for them & doesn't like them. Obvious really.

No animosity, but I know a little of what goes on!

imp:

grego_gee · May 31, 2013

fernandopartridge said:
It's the ERDF line in the report

The ERDF line is £4,700k reduced to £4,374k because the station works were curtailed.

I was looking more at the two £17,000k lines, one for expenditure: "Decomination and infrastructure (expenditure in kind)"
and one for income: "Sale of land (Tesco - contribution in kind)" which has been separated out from "Sale of land (Tesco - cash)" £42,500k

imp:

duffer · May 31, 2013

I'm sure we've done all this before, but here goes...

The council put in £10m and have now backed the mortgage to the tune of £14m.

At the time when the proposal to help build the Arena was first voted on by Cov CC (and it only just scraped through as I recall), the sum discussed as a Council liability was £30m. This kind of adds up given the original mortgage was for £21m.

Let's be clear, if Cov CC had voted against the proposal at that point in time, the club would have been homeless, having already sold HR.

The overall build cost was getting on for £115m, of which the club actually contributed £2m or so.

Even then the club couldn't afford to buy its half of the entire project for £6.5m, which is why The Higgs Trust had to step in. If the Higgs Trust hadn't stepped in, again the club would have been homeless.

There is some discussion that CCFC paid 20m in clean up costs on land that they never actually owned, but I've never seen any documentary evidence for that. There clearly is evidence in the build report of £17m being required to decomtaminate the land.

I don't know about the Gas company's responsibility for cleaning up the land - but I would have thought that as long as they owned it and were not planning to develop it, they had no such responsibility. Perhaps the price of the land reflected the cost of the rectifications required.

I still struggle to see why the Council are the bad guys in this. The club had managed to get themselves into a terrible position financially, and were bailed out by the Council and the Higgs. i don't see any appetite at the Council for screwing the club over, but I think they've got every right to protect their investment.

hutch1972 · May 31, 2013

lordsummerisle said:
I thought that all the clean-up work on the site was paid for by us?

The council didn't really get involved in the whole failure of the building the Arena until well after it was decontaminated did they?

The council spent years trying to get someone to re-generate that area , we were the mugs who did it !! Do people really think that if the cc had not stepped in the ricoh would now be sitting half built , someone somewhere would have helped us.

RPHunt · May 31, 2013

hutch1972 said:
The council spent years trying to get someone to re-generate that area , we were the mugs who did it !! Do people really think that if the cc had not stepped in the ricoh would now be sitting half built , someone somewhere would have helped us.

Someone like SISU you mean? I dread to think how much they would have been charging CCFC to play there.

duffer · May 31, 2013

hutch1972 said:
The council spent years trying to get someone to re-generate that area , we were the mugs who did it !! Do people really think that if the cc had not stepped in the ricoh would now be sitting half built , someone somewhere would have helped us.

Nope - without the Council the Ricoh wouldn't have been sitting half-built, it just wouldn't have been built at all. The area might have been redeveloped, eventually, but there wouldn't have been any obligation on the developers to put a football stadium there.

"Us mugs" contributed 2m to the deal. Out of £115m. Who other than the Council and Higgs would have gone for that.

bigfatronssba · May 31, 2013

duffer said:
Nope - without the Council the Ricoh wouldn't have been sitting half-built, it just wouldn't have been built at all. The area might have been redeveloped, eventually, but there wouldn't have been any obligation on the developers to put a football stadium there.

"Us mugs" contributed 2m to the deal. Out of £115m. Who other than the Council and Higgs would have gone for that.

That's true. In 2003 when the club were begging the council and higgs to build the stadium the council already had plans to develop the area without the stadium.

The shopping park would have gone further up with other leisure facilities.

lordsummerisle · May 31, 2013

duffer said:
Nope - without the Council the Ricoh wouldn't have been sitting half-built, it just wouldn't have been built at all. The area might have been redeveloped, eventually, but there wouldn't have been any obligation on the developers to put a football stadium there.

"Us mugs" contributed 2m to the deal. Out of £115m. Who other than the Council and Higgs would have gone for that.

If it wasn't for the club(bad idea though it was) planning the whole stadium build in the first place do you think that council would have done anything with the site?

Jack Griffin · May 31, 2013

lordsummerisle said:
If it wasn't for the club(bad idea though it was) planning the whole stadium build in the first place do you think that council would have done anything with the site?

Ermmm.. didn't Tesco make a significant contribution in order to get the Arena Park development.. they & other AP retailers most certainly benefit from match days.

Also Bryan Richardson claimed the idea, so go ask him for an accurate description of events, but I wouldn't build up your hopes of getting at the truth the whole truth or anything like the truth.

davebart · May 31, 2013

I'm glad to see we aren't getting polarised comments any more. No one has set their opinion in concrete and continues to persue a one-eyed agenda.

Oh wait - no they do.

lordsummerisle · May 31, 2013

Jack Griffin said:
Ermmm.. didn't Tesco make a significant contribution in order to get the Arena Park development.. they & other AP retailers most certainly benefit from match days.

Also Bryan Richardson claimed the idea, so go ask him for an accurate description of events, but I wouldn't build up your hopes of getting at the truth the whole truth or anything like the truth.

Tesco did make a significant contribution to the Arena Park development, of course the clue being in the name Arena Park .

Would there have been any development or investment in the area by the council(minimal though their actual investment was overall) if the Football Club hadn't set the ball rollling?

Think not, they don't have the imagination, say what you like about Richardson he does have imagination(particularly when it comes to finances), and there would be little or nothing there if left to the Councils own devices.

lordsummerisle · May 31, 2013

davebart said:
I'm glad to see we aren't getting polarised comments any more. No one has set their opinion in concrete and continues to persue a one-eyed agenda.

Oh wait - no they do.

Yeah, you should really try being a bit more open-minded.

grego_gee · Jun 1, 2013

duffer said:
I'm sure we've done all this before, but here goes...

The council put in £10m and have now backed the mortgage to the tune of £14m.

At the time when the proposal to help build the Arena was first voted on by Cov CC (and it only just scraped through as I recall), the sum discussed as a Council liability was £30m. This kind of adds up given the original mortgage was for £21m.

Let's be clear, if Cov CC had voted against the proposal at that point in time, the club would have been homeless, having already sold HR.

The overall build cost was getting on for £115m, of which the club actually contributed £2m or so.

Even then the club couldn't afford to buy its half of the entire project for £6.5m, which is why The Higgs Trust had to step in. If the Higgs Trust hadn't stepped in, again the club would have been homeless.

There is some discussion that CCFC paid 20m in clean up costs on land that they never actually owned, but I've never seen any documentary evidence for that. There clearly is evidence in the build report of £17m being required to decomtaminate the land.

I don't know about the Gas company's responsibility for cleaning up the land - but I would have thought that as long as they owned it and were not planning to develop it, they had no such responsibility. Perhaps the price of the land reflected the cost of the rectifications required.

I still struggle to see why the Council are the bad guys in this. The club had managed to get themselves into a terrible position financially, and were bailed out by the Council and the Higgs. i don't see any appetite at the Council for screwing the club over, but I think they've got every right to protect their investment.

Just to point out how confusing this is duffy,
The £14m mortgage that you refer is whats left of the ACL mortgage, originally of £21m. It has been reduced by £7m (coincidentally this is just about what CCFC have paid to ACL in rent over the period).
That ACL "mortgage" is a mortgage on the 50 year lease that CCC have sold on to them through one of their fully owned companies after the scheme was completed. They sold that lease to ACL for £21M even though they had only put £10m into the scheme themselve in equity.
ACL originally took out this mortgage with Yorkshire bank, now CCC have taken over the mortgage ACL have effectivly borrowed back off them.
There is a line on the completion report showing an input of £21m from Prudential borrowing, I assume this is the same £21m?
If it is, who has provided it?
CCC who received it as a premium for a lease from ACL despite having bought the whole scheme themselves for only £10m?
ACL who borrowed the money and gave it to CCC towards the scheme?
Or CCFC who have been paying £1.2m a year in rent to provide ACL with the income to pay the mortgage?

I expect a lot of you will think the answer is straightforward!

imp:

Jack Griffin · Jun 1, 2013

You could just have well argue that the Higgs Charity paid that sum by purchasing their half share from CCFC for £6M.

As I understand it the £21M was cash required to complete the project, which CCFC was originally supposed to pay but didn't have the funds to do thanks largely to Bryan Richardson's excellent financial planning (called taking a punt with other peoples money).

crowsnest · Jun 1, 2013

Coventry had the funding in place with a loan from banco espirito santo.
Then Leicester went bust building their stadium and the bank pulled out along with the builders Birse.

grego_gee · Jun 1, 2013

crowsnest said:
Coventry had the funding in place with a loan from banco espirito santo.
Then Leicester went bust building their stadium and the bank pulled out along with the builders Birse.

Shame the council didn't step in and re mortgage them, nice & simple!
Its a local buisiness that we all have a lot of concern about!
But they probably said it was against rules and regulations to invest in ptivate companies!

imp:

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