Quote: Hatfield tiger "I do appreciate that the £2m from Wakefield district Council can only go to a trust but i fail to see why everyone keeps going on about this as such a major stumbling block to accesing finance.
I can assure you now that when the cash is required i.e. at the point in time contracts are signed etc both Cas and Wakey will be able to draw on these funds.
Setting up a Trust , charitable of not, is very simple and much like setting up a company can be done in a matter of days (less if its a relatively standard set of articles - we can allways copy Wakey's if need be as they are publically available information after all). The reason why you would not set one up is due to the professional fees required to audit such a trust year on year plus the administration documents required each year. If its not required yet why set it up? £2-5K a year to audit a dormant trust is cash we dont have to blow away.'"
I think you might be missing my point a little. Yes, setting up a trust company is no big deal at all but actually creating a vehicle with which WMDC and other funders are happy with is different and much harder!
The point I was making is that under RW the plan for GH was to move, debt free, into a new stadium solely owned by the club as a private limited company! Like I said, if you can afford to do this then the benefits are obvious and I think that was what RW wanted to do, if possible, and not have to be beholding to other funding, including WMDC, because they can't just give it to a private for-profit business and they will also demand something for their money! WMDC and others would demand a clear and transparent indefinite community benefit and that is the bit that I think will be hard to organise when in reality, you just want the £2m to add to the build fund. I am not sure how this would work, given that WMDC, can't take share in Cas Tigers either? Maybe an agreement for indefinite free use of the facilities for WMDC approved groups and a charge of £2m on the ground, if it was ever to be sold, meaning it would be similar to a directors loan secured on the ground owned by Cas?
The Community Trust model that is been used for Newmarket is better for external funders because they are giving the money to a trust who will own & run the stadium and community sports facilities for and on behalf of the community. Spirit of 1873 Ltd are just a paying tenant who although they are a for-profit business, will be paying the largest part of the annual running costs of the stadium and facilities but that is all. They won't see a penny of the money used to build the stadium and therefore Spirit of 1873 don't see any direct (and direct is the key word) financial benefit from WMDC money or any other governmental/charitable funding.
Of course Wakefield have no other choices because they don't have the current asset level of Cas Tigers but equally unless Cas can the whole thing funded then the only way to ever build GH, might be to go down a similar route of seeking funding.
Lets see what Steve Ferres has to say now.
