The most recent published figures show that Leeds RLFC had £2.4m in the bank and had used other surplus cash to lend the RU club £1.6m. Together that is £4m - cash which had been earmarked to cover the bulk of the cost of the South Stand (anyone know what the final price tag was? Around £6m I think but that could be the smaller scheme). The question mark over the RU cash aside, borrowing the balance from a bank would not I would judge be difficult given the real estate against which it could be secured.

There is something else to this, beyond the funding red herring.

I can't get my head round this. It just makes no sense whatsoever. The funding must have been in place initially if they were intending to start the project around now. I can't work out whether the plans, which won't have been cheap, are now scrapped or if the whole project is just delayed. The latter would make more sense, otherwise why go so far down the planning route, however if that is the case it makes it harder to understand the problem with funding?

All very confusing and the club need to be a little more transparent on this.

Very worrying developments

Or rather the lack of them.

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?

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.