But the Cheshire set round Warrington is very different from that one.

Right.

2004 - Grand Final
2005 - Challenge Cup Final and Grand Final, plus World Club Challenge
2007 - Grand Final
2008 - Grand Final and WCC
2009 - Grand final and WCC
2010 - Challenge Cup Final and WCC
2011 - Challenge Cup Final.

Presumably, none of this were 'budgeted for', so where's all the money gone?

I have been saying for a long time that this might be my final season . Not due to the on-field activities , but to the off-field ones . I will probably still get a season ticket (as and when I am sure I will be able to watch from the SouthStand) , and attend one or two Headingley games . But I fear most of my future RL spectating will be spent elsewhere . Maybe next season will be the one when I finally get to watch us away to Catalans .

Who am I trying to kid ? I just know i will be there every home game . Maybe it is this kind of loyalty that they are relying on.

Does the line "funding in line with other SL clubs" mean they are considering re-location?
Wire, Salford & Saints have gone or are going into retail parks with Tesco or others who have had a major influence on the layout and construction of the sites. They are brown field sites with excellent road access and affordable.
Is this what that part of the statement is leading towards or hinting as a suggestion?
Also if the safety certificate runs out shortly how can they say the S Stand will be open 2012. Has the H & S inspection been done and the place approved or is it all bluff in the hope the new cert will be issued.

The amount of money invested in the Headingley site to me means a relocation is unthinkable on top of which Caddick has always been clear that he came to Leeds to "save" Headingley - and not just the cricket field. But I would like Hetherington to clarify what his comment about funding means. No doubt Leeds would like to get stadium redevelopment paid for the easy way (i.e. not by Leeds) but that was never likely to be the case at Headingley and the club has always been sanguine about it. What has changed suddenly? That bit is unclear.

Quite.

I've also been trying to read between the lines of that statement.

They met with council officials yesterday to discuss funding arrangements. I assume it did not go well.

Here's some things we know. Another, much less affluent local authority nearby is assisting a club with stadium funding.

A branch of our local authority have intimated we will not get a health and safety certificate for the stand much longer.

Another branch of our local authority have refused to let the club to proceed with plans that will benefit the club commercially.

What I don't quite get yet is why YCC have been dragged in but I'll get to that.

I think the club are pretty annoyed at the council forcing them to downgrade the South Stand plans and even then the planning only scraping through 6-4 with several ridiculous conditions attached, especially after the relatively easy ride the same planners gave the new cricket stand and favourable funding for that and previous cricket redevelopments. The club appear to be trying to negotiate some financial assistance from the council in return for agreeing to some of the more daft conditions.
I also think the club would have liked to have done the South Stand now but the delay in planning consent and the need to sell season tickets for next season has put paid to it for this year. Obviously there must have been an agreement that the South Stand would be given a safety certificate for next season otherwise the club wouldn't be selling South Stand season tickets.

I think it's realistic to say if we'd started the process of getting developers in now, after ticking off all the conditions we would have been unlikely to have the stand finished for much of next year. I know origninally it was planned to open the new stand in June ish time halfway through the year and attempt to load the end of the season with big money fixtures.

Perhaps, just perhaps the loss of that extra revenue meant it commercially inadvisable to do it now. My issue then it - Why are we not starting halfway through next year with the intention of being ready for the start of 2013.

How it was such a nightmare to get planning when they approved that awful eyesore in the cricket ground is beyond me. One of the worst building projects I have ever seen, and I'm a cricket fan!

Interesting that it was originally the North Stand which was to be redeveloped/rebuilt first. That fell through and GH blamed YCCC for failing to disclose how skint they were to fulfil their end of the funding joint venture. The North Stand is then deferred until some future undetermined date. Consequently, the redevelopment of the South Stand is immediately announced out of the blue in order to bury bad news with some good news. Several more years down the line and now the South Stand has been deferred until some future undetermined date.

You couldn't make this up!



Are the club about to turn full circle and announce the rebuild of the North Stand instead?

If that is the case, which I doubt, I'd take that right now. I would imagine the North Stand is a much bigger and more complicated project. If that could be done while we patched up the South Stand for a few more years I'd be happy.

Think I'm in dream land though!

Somebody somewhere has made a lot of money from drawing pretty pictures of Headingley though

Caddick's statement today says... [i"...we have met with Yorkshire CCC and Leeds City Council and have agreed to form a working group to explore how the final phases of development for rugby and cricket at Headingley Carnegie can be funded and delivered in the future."[/i

That suggests to me that the focus of the next phase of ground redevelopment is the North Stand... ONCE AGAIN! As I alluded to earlier, the plans will have turned full circle if that's the case and everything is now back to square one of several years ago.

I'll believe any North Stand redvelopment when I can stand in the South Stand and watch cricket. Until then I'll be taking every announcement with a pinch of salt

Serious question and no ulterior motive guys: is there any chance that something else might have taken a prior call on funds? A big tax bill, maybe?

I ask the question because there are potential implications well beyond Leeds if it were to be so. And I would very much prefer the answer to be a convincing "no".

A LOT of knee jerking on here but the above seems a fairly rational guess to me.

Given the fact that commercial credit remain difficult/expensive and that the conditions on the planning are likely to have potentially delayed development such that it might impact income it sounds suspiciously like Leeds Rugby are playing hardball with Leeds City Council

FWIW I think Leeds City Council should stop p*ssing around and put their hands in their pockets [size=50(admittedly I do now live way way outside of Leeds!!!)[/size

Gulfcoast_highwayman raises an awkward question for the Leeds hierarchy. The club must have received gate receipts way ahead of any other Super League club. With the Challenge cup finals in particular, no win bonuses will have been paid out.
So where has this income gone? Possibly to help the Tykes?

Must admit Adey, my first thought on reading the article was that they had been tipped off as to the size of the Bill, and were having to have a rethink.

Reading it again though, I noted GH talking about the redevelopment of the Stadium as opposed to simply the redevelopment of the Southstand. And I felt a lot happier.

My take is that GH is playing the long game, and trying to get a solid commitment from YCC and Leeds Council as to funding and a start date for the NorthStand.

Defering the Southstand rebuild is good tactics in that:

(A) Rhinos will not be investing several millions until his back is covered re the NorthStand, and
(B) he could use the extra time to pressurise Leeds Council to remove some of their dafter planning conditions, and make the SouthStand, with executive boxes a more attractive financial proposition.

If Wakey Council can cough up £2 million, I'm sure GH can crowbar a bit more out of our TownHall.



Interesting times!

How long does an apporved planning application remain "Live"?

This could mean a way forward if the North Stand application is live?

There is too much hidden info on this though.

No surprise to us "Conspiracy theorists" - an owner with cash flow problems and a CEO now out of his depth - what did anyone really expect?

Why would they both expect the council to provide them with cheap financing - I bet every business in Leeds wishes they could tap into the local council for a below commercial rate loan. What planet is Caddick on? - it is obscene in a time when the council cannot afford to fund essential services that the club is expecting them to fund the construction of a new stand. Leeds rugby is a commercial business not a charity - they got lucky with the idiot from Leeds Met did they think the council was equally stupid - especially following the sour taste left by YCC following their inability to meet loan notes on the green palace.

The last set of accounts suggested all was not well in the Caddick cash flow position - for the propping up of the Tykes to come from internal and not external monies said much All those who see Caddick as a benefactor like Moran at Warrington think again - Caddick will be showing positive cash from his dealings with Leeds Rhinos - the much vaunted 7m overdraft was only cleared via the sale of the cricket ground to YCC.

The next set of accounts will interesting reading - the current cash position being one number also the provision for the tax bill and the 1.6m loan to the Tykes. Whilst in theory these are usable funds towards the stand, problem is where will the money come from to repay it? Certainly not the Tykes and it would appear not from Caddick - expecting a right off in the next set of accounts or two.

It is also no surprise the playing personnel is being cut back to such a degree - with no money what did anyone expect - Greg Inglis rocking up!! Fans have to accept the glory days to over for the foreseeable future unless a new young side is going to emerge from within the ranks of the junior set up at Leeds.

The problem we have is that North Stand is not an ongoing safety concern (short term) but the South Stand is, and a few of LCC Structural Engineers are getting twitchy bums about it! Is it going to fall down, no, of course not, but equally it is coming to the end of it's life and is not fit for purpose and they can't just keep granting it a safety certification indefinitely. But this, like quite a few other ideas posted is very plausible!

As quite a few posters have said, there appears to be lots more to this saga that we don't currently know!

PS. As for Wakey MDC giving away £4m (£2m to Wakey & £2m to Cas) well that is not what they have actually done! They have loaned them each a piece of land worth around £2m that they can use as security against which to borrow money. So, they haven't really given them anything at all and ultimatley they get the land back, assuming they don't default on any money upon which the have used it for security. In return Wakefield expect some 'community facilities' to be incorporated into each scheme and of course they have set up a trust company to access this, as local authority's can't give money to a limited company.

Why not both? If the decision has been taken to redevelop the north stand, why not get both done at the same time? Thats surely got to make more sense than losing the north stand and paying for expensive remedial works on the Southstand, for a few years down the line redeveloping the southstand anyway?

Given that financial issues have already brought about the cancellation of both North and South stand redevelopments, I wouldn't be holding out a great deal of hope for the second coming of a new North Stand getting past the planning stage either.

Given financial issues are clearly of such a great importance, I wouldnt rule out the club going for the cheapest option, which would be a joint venture with YCC for the northstand and the Southstand being built at the same time.

They'll need to sell a lot of bricks to Rhinos fans and YCCC members. A £90 price tag each doesn't quite meet the funding criteria though. In the meantime... [i"we have to sell season tickets for 2012 for the current dilapidated South Stand and we have to do it now!"[/i

That'll be the day.

YCCC are already reeling from the significant financial loss they made on the Pakistan test, to the point where they have backed out of bidding for games in other high profile test series because they can't afford it.

IIRC the next two Tests at Headingley are against New Zealand and Sri Lanka, hardly likely to fill the coffers with four days of capacity crowds. Chuck in relegation in the county championship and I'd be surprised if they have two pennies to rub together, unless Costcutter have had a good year and Colin Graves dips into his pocket.

YCCC finances make Leeds rugby look positively glowing!!

Where are YCCC going to get the funding for their part the ECB!! The cost of the north stand will be significantly more than the SS - it is simply a non runner - Gareth will have to continue sitting on those luxurious wooden seats