Some pics of the North Stand demolition: https://yorkshireccc.com/news/view/6089 ... ent-latest

Some pics of the North Stand demolition: https://yorkshireccc.com/news/view/6089 ... ent-latest

Now that the backers and a bit of info on the terms of the redevelopment have been announced,what are peoples views on things?

Im not really clued up on things of this nature. Does it mean legal&general own the stands and we'r just renting them? And if so will we ever own them?

All in all are people who know what theyr talking about happy with the structure of the deal with regards to weather its good,risky or bad for the club? Cheers

I’m sure I heard somewhere that basically L&G will own the stands until they’re paid off over 40 years. Then they become the property of Rhinos/Yorkshire.
Though I think there is facility built in for them to be paid off quicker which the Rhinos would be looking to do.

I thought it was a 42 year lease? That would suggest L&G would retain ownership after 42 years. There may be an agreement in place to extend the lease or purchase the stand at the end of that period, but I wouldn’t of thought we’d just own it automatically.

When this is finished we'll be the only team with a modernized stadium that has kept their spiritual historic home, we'll be unique!

No we won't. Widnes are the same.

we will come in for bit of flack from jealous fans saying we don't own our ground completely

I'm not sure anyone should care how it's funded - and Indoubt anyone has enough info on the agreement to make an informed judgement anyway.

What we do know is that the group of people running our club have shown outstanding leadership of this organisation and dragged it from deaths door to being THE most successful rugby league club on the country both on and off the field by some distance.

However they have chosen to fund the stand, I have absolutely no worries and am confident they will have made the best decision for the club.

As long as the on field performances aren't impacted by it, and fans aren't forced to pay through the nose for it, nobody should really give a hoot.

The split of the cost earlier in the year was £12m for the South Stand, an eye-watering £28.5m for the shared stand with its sub-4,000 RL capacity plus another £2.5m fitout. How much of that £28.5m is paid by Leeds hasn't been confirmed but the total Leeds cost of the development was reported to be around £24m so a little under half (which makes sense given Leeds benefit most from the corporate bit of the stand but Yorkshire's structure is much more complex).

Separately a report with Hetherington quoted Leeds as paying £18m in "rent" which ties back in with the £24m as Leeds have around £6m in cash/available funds.

The basic structure of the deal as outlined was -
1. L&G take a 140 year lease of the joint stand land from Leeds and provide the cash for redevelopment
2. Leeds City Council sublet the completed stand from L&G for 40 (or 45) years which provides L&G their return
3. Leeds and YCCC take further sub-leases of the stand from LCC at a rate which in turn provides LCC with a return
4. After 40 years the subleases from L&G to LCC and from LCC to YCCC and Leeds come to an end. At that point YCCC/Leeds have the option to acquire the 140 year long headlease back for a peppercorn.

LCC has no right to terminate or reduce their lease to L&G but Leeds and Yorkshire can both make lump sum repayments to reduce the rents they have to pay to the council going forward.

The council was planning on taking security from the clubs in the form of ECB fee income, the stadium naming rights, a Caddick group or Leeds guarantee of up to £5m plus other odds and sods.

The main mystery to me is how the £12m South Stand financing works. Leeds provide their £5m or £6m of this but it looks like L&G provide the balance - but from the horses mouth I was told this development was being done by Leeds entirely separately to the shared stand and it isn't mentioned anywhere in the council agreements which all talk about L&G's 140 year lease of the shared stand.

£24m to rent 2 stands sounds high? St Helens' entire stadium only cost £30m.

I think Leeds would view the £24m as their total cost as they aren't particularly fussed about the funding structure and will end up owning it at the end. But yes it's over £2k per spectator whereas Langtree Park ended up at around £1.5k per spectator. However the seating/standing ratio is much greater at Headingley and Leeds would be confident of generating a much better return on investment than Saints given the higher rates achievable at Headingley and the size of the corporate facilities in the new shared stand which are about 1/3 larger than those at Langtree Park.