At the risk of sounding a bit naive if the Southstand was only granted a safety licence for two years and that expires before the start of next season how can Leeds advertise season tickets for the Southstand when they cannot guarantee it will be open?

This.

Some of the quotes from the club and the fact that all this has been done in the public spotlight is quite frankly an embarrassment

I hope its not the mid 90s revisited when we were all asking the old regime just what is going on?and when we just about went bust we than knew.

The timing and wording of this are very, very intriguing.

For it to go out on the same email/text as the one announcing the sale of memberships for 2012 is quite baffling.

caddick's probably always getting moaned at for not putting shelves up @ home too

I find all this quite baffling, given the positive statements up until very recently.
Add to this the unbudgeted cash inflow from the Wembley visit (admittedly not as large as may have been hoped for).
One would expect the Club to have made soundings about finance long before the final planning meeting, especially given the unofficial timetable for the building work.
I had a feeling, not backed up by research, that Leeds Rugby formed part of the Caddick Group of companies.
If so, given the current economic recession, it could fall to be consolidated as part of the overall cash position of the group by the group's bankers, which may be viewed as very risky.
The likelihood then may be that the Leeds Rugby company may be cash generative within a more cash negative situation BUT only without incurring any further large capital outlays.
The hand which was in the past so generous in saving the Club form extinction may now be calling in a few favours.

Probably my own imagination going wild.

Something is definitely baffling regarding today's announcement

I was expecting an announcement of a delay but not for the reasons now stated.

When it was announced that Planning Consent had been granted for the redevelopment of the South Stand but that numerous "conditions" had been attached to the consent then I am aware that discharging such conditions can take several months and thats from the date of the new application needed for the discharging and not including the time needed to prepare the necessary documents/reports relating to the conditions to accompany the new application.

It is not unusual for the conditions to include a prohibition against any redevolpment to commence until the conditions have been discharged and approved..so there may not have been any guarantees that the works could be completed before the start of the season given the delays these conditions will cause.

Oh and by the way Tesco are scheduled to build a large new outlet down the road on the old Kwik Save site on Kirkstall Hill.

Leeds RLFC as a club and as a company, ignoring anything else to do with Caddick group or the disastrous Union company, can afford this scheme easily; 50% or more of the cost can be covered from existing cash reserves that were built up for just this purpose.

At Headingley the scheme for this stand will never get any bigger or any cheaper so unless Caddick himself needs the RL club's cash we need to be reading between the lines of that statement but it's fairly impenetrable.

What is really afoot...???

The "funding model [of] other super league clubs" involves usually selling their stadia for redevelopment or getting the council to stump up cash. If the council is really involved on a funding level (is this likely right now??), with the involvement of the cricket club might Leeds want to use the cash instead for a North Stand redevelopment. YCC will need to sort itself out again financially if that is the case.

But we come back to the planning process. Leeds said, "the removal of the executive boxes from the drawings left a scheme with little or no added value in terms of commercial opportunities." But ... it has to be done. Or should I say, it has to be done if Leeds stay at Headingley - and I don't care what anyone says about the financial potential of a flat pack on the ring road somewhere, leaving seems both still unlikely but also unpalatable.

Love it when a plan comes together

Two yrs planning, given up as we have now agreed we cant or wont afford the new stand.

Why take fans money from the Rhinos for 4life scheme ? were has this money gone ?

How much have we wasted in paying designers etc and applying for planning etcj just to get to the payment side and think oh we cant afford this !!!

This is a joke and bad pr for Leeds

The parent club sold the cricket ground to YCC who got a loan from the council which wiped off the leeds rlfc and with a bit more left over.YCC the rebuilds 90%of the cricket ground,it looks very nice and the old landlords cant afford to rebuild 35%of the rugby ground.I think they are once again in financial difficulties ,thats why they resigned players past their sell by date and signed the likes of moore etc

Saving his money for his beloved Ra Ra s

Are we turning into Castlefieldford ?

Maybe trying to force cheap funding from public coffers to update a key sporting venue to the city? Some sort of last minute "blackmail"?

Either that or the club has secured a deal with Tescos?