thanks for clearing that up sadfish, and do you know if they will form a seperate stadium company?

Yes of course, Langtree aren't paying for the stadium, they are building it.

The stadium company will be wholly controlled by Saints albeit with stipulations from the Council and possilbly some from the land owners, but the lease is for 999 years. I don't understand why some people are nit picking here. Well I do, but it's for no other reason than to try and cause hassle some jealous eyes maybe?

Exactly what I said. Not sure why the Saints' fans whom claimed different would have done so out of jealousy though.

You said that the stadium was leased and not owned. If Sadfish is saying that then that is still contradictory to what I heard the Saints management say quite clearly at the meeting I attended.

Mr Satfish,

why is the lease to "occupy the Stadium" and not the "Stadium Land" if Langtree will not own the stadium?

I'm just confused by this.

Despite your later post I would also say that Langtree are paying for the stadium as they are entering into the contract for it to be built. The S106 Agreement does refer to the Council and Langtree having to enter into a separate agreement in relation to the Council providing funding for the stadium build prior to commencing construction. Wherever the money is coming from Langtree will be signing the cheques to the contractor for the building of the stadium (there is also reference to NWDA having a funding agreement with Langtree).

The stadium isn't worth a carrot without ownership of the land.

£8 million comes from Saints, £6 million from the Council and £4.5 million from NWDA (it was £10 million from the Council but when the NWDA grant was awarded, the Council's contribution dropped). Tesco are building their own store and car park; no idea about their funding. I've no idea how much Langtree have put into it either. They are the owners of the land and the developers of the land. Saints will be the owners of the stadium and they, along with the Council and Langtree, are presently awarding contracts to the various builders involved in building the stadium. Langtree may write the cheques, but they aren't providing the money to get the stadium built: Saints is. The Council's responsibilities are around cleansing the site, sorting out the services to the site (including building a bridge to take emergency vehicles, building the road linking to the Linkway) and upgrading other services to feed the stadium site: they were due to upgrade security at the two nearby multistorey car parks, for instance.

What a load of tosh. Lots of private housing is built on land owned by private landowners. My own place included. I am supposed to pay £4 a year rent for the land to a representative further down the road but that stopped years ago. The land on which my privately owned property is built is leasehold. Lots of people own properties on leasehold land. Lots own properties on freehold land. That doesn't make the property worthless.

Domestically, you are correct. Commercially, you are a million miles away.

Look at it another way; Saints can sell KR land as an asset. As a stadium it is worthless.

Capiche?

Whilst true its a "nonsensical" way of looking at it, a stadium is worthless without the land, a stadium is worthless anyhow due to the fact that very few times can you realise the money for a stadium due to the fact that.....you need the stadium to play in!

It's not like a house were there is loads of choice, there is perhaps one stadium per town, so thats that.

Very few teams have the opportunity to sell a ground and still own their new ground, even if it's on a 999 year lease, the positives are all to do with money coming in once the stadium is running, as the more fingers in the pie. sorry pastie. the less money the club can make.

The point being that this is the best deal the club can get and it's better than most RL teams get when the move stadia.

Why not just say Wigan?

Yes, we all know that. We stand in it almost every week.

The Tesco thing is a bit of mystery though isn't it?
The whole project was conditional to Tesco being able to build a megastore - as per the HJ Stadium - so they must be contibuting a fair old amount to this. Presumably, they will give their contribution directly to Saints who will then call it their contribution together with the KR proceeds as there is absolutely no way Eammon and friends have £8M in their back pocket.

there is no way they will give any money to Saints, or anyone else other than the builders, the money will be all legally written into the project and will become payable when the correct date is required to the builders.

Saints won't see any, won't want it near their books..............

I don't understand why you think it's all a mystery, Saints money is from the sale of KR simples.

As I understand it, Tesco are simply taking care of themselves. Their presence there makes the development of the site possible because it is a big site, well beyond what Saints were capable of affording, so they take care of a sizeable chunk of it while Saints invest the money obtained from the sale of KR (£8 million) in building the new stadium. The Council and NWDA money is due to take care of the cleansing of and services to the site.

Langtree where charged with building a new stadium for St Helens RLFC, to the satisfaction of the council and the Saints (super league standards).
Langtree are experts in obtaining grants from various Government and sporting bodies, which in turn allows the council a more active financial role.
The development of the old Tesco site will once again bring in grant money and will allow the council a more active role, that will be of use to the stadium.
Its sad that the person who fought long and hard in the early days is never spoke of, the one that got Tesco onboard in the first place, remember Asda told their staff they where moving to the new site.

Well that's a different deal to the one they did for the Dire.
Their CEO said
"They were in need of a fairy godmother, who duly arrived in the unlikely guise of Tesco.

Gatcliffe said: “They were the only food retailer not represented in Warrington but they couldn’t get through planning.

“Tesco originally offered £1m to help fund the stadium but that became £3m, then £5m, then fully-funded plus help with cash flow, and they paid the legal fees.

“Warrington Borough Council, Tesco and Carlsberg-Tetley, who owned the site, all helped us with cashflow for two years until we got there. Then they wrote off the money. It was like coming out of a dream.”

So they got £5M plus all their legal fees paid from Tesco (for the stadium NOT site development) and you say we don't get anything from them.
I'm sorry I just don't buy the story that Tesco are just taking care of themselves. If we needed to help develop a site that is too big for us we should surely just reduce the site size and let them sing for their store. Did we really say well we can get your store application through on the back of our stadium (which would have stood a big ZERO % chance of approvalwithout our stadium) but all we want is for you to assist in the site development and build your own store?

This really is just not right, otherwise, why let them on the site if they are only looking after themselves.
Probably the biggest issue is gaining planning consent was the building of an "out of town centre" supermarket. Why go through all that if Tesco are "taking care of themselves" and were only needed because they make development of the site possible!

Yes, you make a good point SaW, what EXACTLY are Tesco contributing towards the Saints stadium, and why were they so crucial in getting this through for Saints? I don't get it.

Come on Bob you should know the score, all those times you were hot on the planning application.

who cares what tesco put in? in their terms they could throw £10 mil at it on the off chance of getting a new supermarket built. They make that much every day or 2. The cost involved here are peanuts to them.

Did Wire have the same development company we have? I don't know. What I do know, though, is only what I was told at the meeting I have referred to earlier. In that meeting it was clearly stated that Tesco were building their own store, that their car parking would not be available to RL supporters and that their presence has enabled the site to be developed. They may well be helping to fund the servicing of the site - after all, they need water, drainage, access, etc, just as Saints do - but at no time have any other partners been mentioned in relation to Saints' stadium other than Langtree (the developers) and St Helens Council. And at no time did the hierarchy of Saints say that Tesco were in any way involved in the funding or otherwise of the Saints stadium. £8 million it would seem is fully sufficient to build a stadium and the £8 million is the sale price on Knowsley Road (which Taylor wotsit were upset about at the lowest point of the recession but presumably they have come to terms with it subsequently).

Just because Wire experienced a certain relationship with Tesco does not mean Saints will experience the exact same relationship.

My understanding is that Langtree will develope the whole site, as we know, unlike the stadium Tesco will not fund the building of the supermarket, but instead rent the supermarket from Langtree for x number of years, this is how developers make money, part of the profit Langtree make will be used to offset some of the cost of the stadium.
Spen Hill (tesco) will do exactly the same on Chalon Way, Debenhams are rumoured to be locating in the marque building, they will rent from Spen Hill.

Are you a politician by any chance?

As far as I am concerned the fact of the matter was that the Tesco approval was absolutley crucial to the Stadium being a reality. I think most people believed that meant a similar arrangement to the dire i.e. a large cash contribution in addition to them helping in developing the site and building their own car park and store. I think that it would be very odd indeed if that was their only contribution.

When all that anti-Wm Morrison stuff was going on; that was to support Tesco's new store which was part of the funding package - or so people believed - for our Stadium.
Am I on my own with this, cos to me it seems very strange that we are not seeing a splodge of cash on its way to the club with season's greetings from Tesco as per the HJ.

No, I think Tesco will be involved a lot more than other people are saying they are, same as they were with the proposed Everton site in Kirkby. There would be little need for us to jump on the back of them if they weren't, and we're very much the junior partners on the site with parking and location. Why is that the case if all they are providing is the improvements to the infrastructure of the site?

Very few people on here will know exactly what the funding arrangements are, if anyone. They'll have bits and bobs of information cribbed from here and there, but who knows if that is the truth? Most of it will be conjecture. Sadfish, will probably know the fullest picture of the process, but why would McManus tell even him (

) the full story?