Quote ="Leaf"Something akin to Leigh Sports Village at Odsal would be very good, although I've not seen a game at LSV I've had a tour around the stadium and its a brilliant facility.
Thing with LSV though, is that the commercial element of the scheme such as the commercial development on the stadium site and retail development on Leigh East's former pitch has still not gone ahead.
An 80k sq ft 'sports retail' unit sounds ridiculous though, thats like the size of a big Tesco/Asda. Also the size of that amount of retail would make the planning case hard to make, although these might be outweighed if it is shown that the OSV is an all singing, all dancing regeneration scheme.'"
I agree that £18.5m income from Sports Retail & Sponsorship sounds optimistic - that's quite a bit for any company to pay for a sports retail store especially when they can't fill Westfield in the current climate. I would presume the majority would be expected from sponsorship of the OSV over a significant period.
I would say there are a few more worrying elements in the report, not least :
[i"Both estimates are exclusive of VAT. However, VAT will be applicable to elements of the capital build programme and further detailed consideration will need to be given to this aspect of the project. As a worst case, based on the anticipated VAT rate applicable at the time of construction, the cost of the compliant scheme could raise by 17.5% to £88,712,500. At this rate the Option 1 scheme costs would rise to
£65,447,500."[/i
... followed by :
[i"It should also be noted that the construction programme has not been tested with the construction industry and there is an assumption of a non-complex construction activity. As the designs develop and more information is known about the project, this programme might change."[/i
... and :
[iPlanning permission will ultimately be required for the preferred option. The application will relate to a significant proposal and will require the submission of a considerable number of specialist studies and other supporting documents ...<snipped>....... Notwithstanding this, the suggested opening of the entire facility by 2012 remains ambitious."[/i
They're not insurmountable but there are still a lot of "don't knows" included and it's f*cking ambitious to expect there to be no hiccups.
