It's still a bloody millstone.

Any development we want to do now only needs council approval

Unless there is some grand plan we haven't been told about this seems a weird move by the club.

Unless there is some grand plan we haven't been told about this seems a weird move by the club.

Well they obviously have some sort of plan for Odsal if the club are willing to pay that amount for a lease that would have protected the Bulls future in Bradford regardless of Odsal ownership.

I'm no engineer / architect, but isn't there something that can be done to improve things on the current footprint and do that bit part? I know previously anchoring any roof structure was an issue due to the fact we're in a ditch.

This was (insert your number) years ago....given some of the weird and wonderful feats we see in the building world, I struggle to see why we couldn't do something (with funding, obviously).

Previously it's all felt a bit poop or bust - Wembley of the North or nowt

How long are we tied in with the stock cars for?

If you brought pitch level to the top of the track, we could get a playing surface that was fit for purpose and the correct size, then develop the seating and terracing from there.

Squaring off the Rooley Lane end to bring it nearer the pitch would seem a sensible start....

Robin Hood quoted a figure of around 4.5m in 2008ish to put a roof over the popular side. This was excessively high due to the land the ground sits on.

On the one hand us getting the leasehold gives us some more security since after this season we weren’t clear where we’d play. There were no clear options with VP being unaffordable, Horsfall not being big enough and Dewsbury being outside the city.

On the other it raises a lot of questions.

Can we afford to buy the leasehold?
Can we afford the upkeep?
Can we afford to develop the ground to gain IMG points?

The ground was always cited by Hood as being a big reason why we got into the financial mess in the first place (not withstanding the Harris compensation and poor decisions on recruitment that affected performances). Nothing has changed since then in terms of us being able to afford stadium upkeep and we now play in the second tier with the fraction of the income we had.

It seems as though Odsal is the only option – I just hope it doesn’t drag us down again.

There was an interview with Hirst where he said the Bulls could only make Odsal work if the Council were a bit more flexible with alternative incomes & events

I guess key question is what are the benefits of being primary leaseholder?

Upside

from a financial POV figure most often banded about for the rent was 70K. not sure if that is now split between us and the stockcars.

so for a 100k outlay this year (and assuming we are still paying full rent this year and not paying just upto point of sale, in which case the 100k figure is actually reduced by amount we save on rent).

then from next year our outlay will be 32k for five years to pay the extra 160k ( which may actually be covered by the stockcars now paying us rent as primary leaseholder.

after that effectively e don't have any outlay in regard to rent except the £1 peppercorn rent to Bradford council and get paid rental income from the stockcars.

Downside

we become liable for the 190k upkeep costs. Not sure where that figure has come from. part will be business rates(think figure of 100k per annum was bandied about for this)and rest will be maintenance but as I understood it we were already paying the maintenance costs anyway?. I suspect the 190k figure is inflated by RFL to make it look like a better deal for them.

the biggest gain as I see it is we can now make incremental improvements to stadium which we weren't going to do when we jwere ust renting from RFL. I wonder what the business rates are based on? for example would semi-permanently mothballing the roles lane end and reducing the capacity ( guessing we would still be 12k+) both reduce the business rates and improve our IMG score?

Plus the gnashing of teeth and ranting from usual sources is highly entertaining.

There's got to be something in the pipeline. I don't think we would have brought it for 260k in total, plus £190k a year maintenance costs just for sentimental value.

This might seem stupid but why is putting a roof up on the popular side an issue? Wasn’t there one years ago over that side?

There was a small stand on the pop side for seating IIRC. I expect putting something else there would be easy if built to 1940s building specs. Not sure if the current requirements would mean it's still possible. It needs survey to understand what's possible I guess.

Almost anything is possible in construction - just depends how deep your pockets are. Its a fair old terrace to cover - think Wakefield paid double figure millions for theirs and ours would need to be probably twice that size. Obviously you can VE certain things out of a project but even a basic covered stand would need some serious cash from somewhere.