Langtree where charged with building a new stadium for St Helens RLFC, to the satisfaction of the council and the Saints (super league standards).
Langtree are experts in obtaining grants from various Government and sporting bodies, which in turn allows the council a more active financial role.
The development of the old Tesco site will once again bring in grant money and will allow the council a more active role, that will be of use to the stadium.
Its sad that the person who fought long and hard in the early days is never spoke of, the one that got Tesco onboard in the first place, remember Asda told their staff they where moving to the new site.

Well that's a different deal to the one they did for the Dire.
Their CEO said
"They were in need of a fairy godmother, who duly arrived in the unlikely guise of Tesco.

Gatcliffe said: “They were the only food retailer not represented in Warrington but they couldn’t get through planning.

“Tesco originally offered £1m to help fund the stadium but that became £3m, then £5m, then fully-funded plus help with cash flow, and they paid the legal fees.

“Warrington Borough Council, Tesco and Carlsberg-Tetley, who owned the site, all helped us with cashflow for two years until we got there. Then they wrote off the money. It was like coming out of a dream.”

So they got £5M plus all their legal fees paid from Tesco (for the stadium NOT site development) and you say we don't get anything from them.
I'm sorry I just don't buy the story that Tesco are just taking care of themselves. If we needed to help develop a site that is too big for us we should surely just reduce the site size and let them sing for their store. Did we really say well we can get your store application through on the back of our stadium (which would have stood a big ZERO % chance of approvalwithout our stadium) but all we want is for you to assist in the site development and build your own store?

This really is just not right, otherwise, why let them on the site if they are only looking after themselves.
Probably the biggest issue is gaining planning consent was the building of an "out of town centre" supermarket. Why go through all that if Tesco are "taking care of themselves" and were only needed because they make development of the site possible!

Yes, you make a good point SaW, what EXACTLY are Tesco contributing towards the Saints stadium, and why were they so crucial in getting this through for Saints? I don't get it.

Come on Bob you should know the score, all those times you were hot on the planning application.

who cares what tesco put in? in their terms they could throw £10 mil at it on the off chance of getting a new supermarket built. They make that much every day or 2. The cost involved here are peanuts to them.

Did Wire have the same development company we have? I don't know. What I do know, though, is only what I was told at the meeting I have referred to earlier. In that meeting it was clearly stated that Tesco were building their own store, that their car parking would not be available to RL supporters and that their presence has enabled the site to be developed. They may well be helping to fund the servicing of the site - after all, they need water, drainage, access, etc, just as Saints do - but at no time have any other partners been mentioned in relation to Saints' stadium other than Langtree (the developers) and St Helens Council. And at no time did the hierarchy of Saints say that Tesco were in any way involved in the funding or otherwise of the Saints stadium. £8 million it would seem is fully sufficient to build a stadium and the £8 million is the sale price on Knowsley Road (which Taylor wotsit were upset about at the lowest point of the recession but presumably they have come to terms with it subsequently).

Just because Wire experienced a certain relationship with Tesco does not mean Saints will experience the exact same relationship.

My understanding is that Langtree will develope the whole site, as we know, unlike the stadium Tesco will not fund the building of the supermarket, but instead rent the supermarket from Langtree for x number of years, this is how developers make money, part of the profit Langtree make will be used to offset some of the cost of the stadium.
Spen Hill (tesco) will do exactly the same on Chalon Way, Debenhams are rumoured to be locating in the marque building, they will rent from Spen Hill.

Are you a politician by any chance?

As far as I am concerned the fact of the matter was that the Tesco approval was absolutley crucial to the Stadium being a reality. I think most people believed that meant a similar arrangement to the dire i.e. a large cash contribution in addition to them helping in developing the site and building their own car park and store. I think that it would be very odd indeed if that was their only contribution.

When all that anti-Wm Morrison stuff was going on; that was to support Tesco's new store which was part of the funding package - or so people believed - for our Stadium.
Am I on my own with this, cos to me it seems very strange that we are not seeing a splodge of cash on its way to the club with season's greetings from Tesco as per the HJ.

Yes, of course it was. However, the information given was that Tesco were needed to enable the site's development. Would Langtree have allowed the stadium to have been built while leaving the rest of the site derelict? Would such a plan have been passed by the Council? I would suggest the answer to both those questions is no. Tesco are crucial - as indeed are Taylor Wimpey (without the sale of KR, there are no funds for Saints to build) - because they facilitate the development of the whole site, which in turn is necessary for the stadium to be built.