thanks for clearing that up sadfish, and do you know if they will form a seperate stadium company?

Yes of course, Langtree aren't paying for the stadium, they are building it.

The stadium company will be wholly controlled by Saints albeit with stipulations from the Council and possilbly some from the land owners, but the lease is for 999 years. I don't understand why some people are nit picking here. Well I do, but it's for no other reason than to try and cause hassle some jealous eyes maybe?

You said that the stadium was leased and not owned. If Sadfish is saying that then that is still contradictory to what I heard the Saints management say quite clearly at the meeting I attended.

Mr Satfish,

why is the lease to "occupy the Stadium" and not the "Stadium Land" if Langtree will not own the stadium?

I'm just confused by this.

Despite your later post I would also say that Langtree are paying for the stadium as they are entering into the contract for it to be built. The S106 Agreement does refer to the Council and Langtree having to enter into a separate agreement in relation to the Council providing funding for the stadium build prior to commencing construction. Wherever the money is coming from Langtree will be signing the cheques to the contractor for the building of the stadium (there is also reference to NWDA having a funding agreement with Langtree).

The stadium isn't worth a carrot without ownership of the land.

£8 million comes from Saints, £6 million from the Council and £4.5 million from NWDA (it was £10 million from the Council but when the NWDA grant was awarded, the Council's contribution dropped). Tesco are building their own store and car park; no idea about their funding. I've no idea how much Langtree have put into it either. They are the owners of the land and the developers of the land. Saints will be the owners of the stadium and they, along with the Council and Langtree, are presently awarding contracts to the various builders involved in building the stadium. Langtree may write the cheques, but they aren't providing the money to get the stadium built: Saints is. The Council's responsibilities are around cleansing the site, sorting out the services to the site (including building a bridge to take emergency vehicles, building the road linking to the Linkway) and upgrading other services to feed the stadium site: they were due to upgrade security at the two nearby multistorey car parks, for instance.

What a load of tosh. Lots of private housing is built on land owned by private landowners. My own place included. I am supposed to pay £4 a year rent for the land to a representative further down the road but that stopped years ago. The land on which my privately owned property is built is leasehold. Lots of people own properties on leasehold land. Lots own properties on freehold land. That doesn't make the property worthless.

Domestically, you are correct. Commercially, you are a million miles away.

Look at it another way; Saints can sell KR land as an asset. As a stadium it is worthless.

Capiche?

Whilst true its a "nonsensical" way of looking at it, a stadium is worthless without the land, a stadium is worthless anyhow due to the fact that very few times can you realise the money for a stadium due to the fact that.....you need the stadium to play in!

It's not like a house were there is loads of choice, there is perhaps one stadium per town, so thats that.

Very few teams have the opportunity to sell a ground and still own their new ground, even if it's on a 999 year lease, the positives are all to do with money coming in once the stadium is running, as the more fingers in the pie. sorry pastie. the less money the club can make.

The point being that this is the best deal the club can get and it's better than most RL teams get when the move stadia.

Why not just say Wigan?

Yes, we all know that. We stand in it almost every week.