ACL could sue if they saw anything damaging in the claims. If however the claims are about elected officials and the actions of the Council then the damage is not ACL's to take legal action over.
Right... the council won't sue but ACL could?
Something strange he said yesterday that Ann Lucas did'nt meet with Sepalla,I'm sure we were all told through the media that they had met??
I would like to see Bill Oddie and his nature watch chums set up a hide and keep an eye on this fella for a few weeks. They could call it Labiawatch.I would love a Jeremy Paxman type to interview this dipstick at length, live on air. Could blow this whole debacle sky high.
SSN: For more on this we have been joined in the studio by ML. A NED of CCFC. Er, Mark good afternoon to you. Just first of all tell us why there is a need for a new stadium if the Ricoh Arena is just sitting there and it hasn't have a tenant at the moment?
ML: It's a very good question, but the point is and I think we spoke about this the last time I was with you in the studio here. It's absolutely essential for this club or any other club to own it's own stadium to be financially viable in the long term. And we want this club to be solid financially viable in the long term as well as playing successfully. So we have to own our own stadium. We've been trying to get the council to agree to sell the Ricoh Arena to the club it was built for. Er, at a fair independent valuation and there was some encouraging signs I think when I last spoke over the phone onto the program we had just had a sign that Anne Lucas the council leader was going to come and meet the clubs owner and talk about a sale. But I think she changed her mind on the train coming down. So they are now not willing to talk about a sale only about a rental deal which obviously given the recent history no way is that gonna work, and so we have to build our own because we need to get back to Coventry as soon as possible and own our own stadium.
SSN: As it stands though the club hasn't announced where this new stadium will be. Why is that?
ML: It's because we narrowed down a number of sites to two. We are negotiating in parallel with two and commercially it would be very unwise to take the risk of just putting all of our eggs in one basket and ditching one.
As soon as we are able to confirm it's just the one we will do but what we want to do again is save time. We don't want to stay at Sixfields for a minute longer than we really have to even thought they're very good to us there, it obviously isn't Coventry.
So what we are doing is we are getting the design work, as much of the design work done in advance; as much of the preparations for planning permission done in advance. So for example there are two local authorities involved. They each want an economic impact assessment done to show the benefits that the stadium will bring to the area. Now one of those may end up unused, but we are getting both of them done so that when the final site selection and purchase is done we'll already be hitting... having hit the ground running with the design work and the planning.
SSN: Obviously there is this ongoing dispute between the club and the city's council. Is it therefore a given that your gonna have to build outside of Coventry under a different local authority.
ML: Er, yes. I don't think that they will be particularly helpful to having the club in their jurisdiction... The thing about Coventry is, it is a big city in population terms - I think the 7th largest city in England, but it has got a very tight boundary. So you can build a new stadium really not that much further from the city center or the railway station, than the Ricoh Arena is. And at the time a lot of the Highfield Road stallwards thought the Ricoh Arena was far too far away. But you can actually be under the jurisdiction of a different local authority than Coventry City Council.
SSN: You have mentioned already about how you were hoping to buy the Ricoh Arena. Is that now completely over? Is there no way that you will ever go back to the Ricoh?
ML: I mean. I personally never like to say never, but we can't sit and, I suppose forgive the pun, let the grass grow. Er we've got to get back to Coventry as quickly as possible. Now we can sit around waiting for the council, who I think are sort of all over the place on this, to get their act together and come to the right decision but we just can't take that risk - we've got to get moving.
SSN: So are the finances though in place though if you were to buy the Ricoh as you suggested?
ML: Er n..[!!] absolutely the finances are in place and you know what we would want to do to buy the Ricoh is the normal way you do a property deal. The buyer and seller would each get a chartered surveyor to do an independent valuation, that would give you a ball-park in which you could talk. Er, but they don't seem to want to do that. Now they have done independent valuations in the past; it looks like they have tried to keep them quiet. The recent court action brought to light one of them erm and I think there are a number of
reasons why they don't want to sell.
I would say that the elected councilors in Coventry work very very hard for their constituents in oft what is quite a challenging environment; in a city with a great deal of deprivation and a very tight budget. But the salaried council officers I think have misled them, and they sit on the board of ACL the two most senior officers, I think there is a terrible conflict of interest there and I think that a sale of the Ricoh might bring to light er certain financial transactions in the past and the recent past which they would rather keep covered up. And you know I would really like it if one of the council officers could come on this program or on the radio and talk about that with me there to just let fans know the truth.
Doesn't look like it's going to happen and for that reason I think the officers are preventing a sale going through, so look we just need to leave that behind and get on with running a football club and that means owning our own stadium and if we can't buy the one that's there we'll build a new one.
So the million dollar question is... if there is a second council involved (I don't consider Rugby to be the 2nd personally) then where exactly is this second council! as it clearly appears not to be any of the other 6 surrounding LAs
How far afield do we need to try and ask - Maybe they are in discussions with some councils down in London?
In all seriousness discounting the councils who have already been approached how many miles outside of Cov are we talking for the next closest? Didn't somewhere get specified as the point the distance was measured from (the council house maybe)?
M6/M1 interchange is under 15 miles as the crow flies... or bottom end of M45 near Dunchurch is approx 11 miles away. Both those areas come under Northampton.... did anyone FOI Northampton?View attachment 3188
M6/M1 interchange is under 15 miles as the crow flies... or bottom end of M45 near Dunchurch is approx 11 miles away. Both those areas come under Northampton.... did anyone FOI Northampton?View attachment 3188
That image wasn't quite as large as I had hoped... the boundaries can be viewed here:
http://maps.northamptonshire.gov.uk...base=NCC,layers=,search=,fade=false,mX=0,mY=0
If they tried to build a Ground in Northampton they can shove it as far as I would be concerened.
Oh me too... just saying, that 11 miles away and it is a council that has not been sent an FOI... "ML we need to get back to Coventry.... (by staying in Northampton)"
I imagine TF is having a good day "Fuck Joy, they are on to us, what BS can we spin to cover this one up..."
I don't doubt it. Yeah I bet the Trust didn't think about it because they thought Sisu had some decency.
Do they cost anything to put in these requests? Maybe the trust should do the all the next nearest councils and really pile the pressure on. I hope someone from the trust has formally approached the Football League with the results of the FOI requests. There must surely be a point at which the league step in and at the very least ask SISU for some answers.
Do they cost anything to put in these requests? Maybe the trust should do the all the next nearest councils and really pile the pressure on. I hope someone from the trust has formally approached the Football League with the results of the FOI requests. There must surely be a point at which the league step in and at the very least ask SISU for some answers.
Nope FOI are free, but can be rejected on grounds of cost if it would cost alot of money to find out the answer. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/
We need clarity from ALL sides.
I'm getting sick to death of the whole saga.
M6/M1 interchange is under 15 miles as the crow flies... or bottom end of M45 near Dunchurch is approx 11 miles away. Both those areas come under Northampton.... did anyone FOI Northampton?View attachment 3188
If they tried to build a Ground in Northampton they can shove it as far as I would be concerened.
Northampton Borough are funding the expansion of Sixfields (through Govt money), so no approach there.
Northampton Borough are funding the expansion of Sixfields (through Govt money), so no approach there.
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