Spot on, but they have tried this avenue that at times needs help from the local council, or somewhere. Wakefield and Cas have spent many years hamstrung without help from their council. Where Bradford council were encouraged to come in was to sell Odsal (it's apparently very valuable land) and use part of the money to build a ground across the road on the land where the council sports centre is.

It seemed to make great sense, especially as it may not have burdened Bradford ratepayers, but again nothing happened and it's puzzling to understand why?

We were told that maintenance just to keep the dump safe was £350k per annum. Now whether that's true or not I couldn't say, but the issue of affordability has never really been about rent which is pretty tiny.

What ever it is the cost of maintenance will go up every year.That's a given
For me from the outside looking in i can't see how the Bulls can afford to return to Odsal the the near future as i can't see where the money will come from as it wasn't there before, not unless there is a sugar daddy waiting in the wings which obviously i wouldn't be aware of.

That maintenance cost was being shouldered solely by the club under the previous deal. Maybe a new deal would share that out between the various stakeholders ie. council, Bulls, that stock car racing bloke and RFL? Let’s be honest the twisted tale of our largest shareholder’s involvement with the club before and after him leaving the RFL is pretty murky.

Getting it up to a safe standard (safe not necessarily decent) won’t be an issue as that’s being taken care of by the stock car promotors that have been carrying out work there.

It may also be motivated by the news yesterday that Kirklees council have only been allowed to allow 700 fans to return to Tetley’s stadium after COVID.

Either way as someone who has had great memories from watching games at the old girl over the last 30 years I’m not massively excited about a return “home”.

Precisely the moment I walked from the game entirely.

Pure chance that I hit "f" in the address bar on an old computer today and this site came up and I decided to take a nosy.

I may go to the odd non-Bradford game. I will certainly pick unreasonable fights with Welsh colleagues in my (north) Wales based employer. I will not put any money in to that club while that man is involved. When it all burns to the ground again I doubt I'll even notice.

I am very far from the only one with that view point.

The club has always struggled financially while it's had to pay for stadium upkeep itself. The only time it did not was 1986-2000 when the Council paid for the upkeep. It's no coincidence that the club's fortunes went downhill fairly quickly after the re-development fell through in 2002/3.

One thing that always puzzled me was Chalmers saying how unaffordable Odsal was when he was quite clearly spending nothing on it - but I suppose he didn't have two brass farthings to rub together when Wood approved his application sio he was never able to spend anything.

Things behind the scenes are more unclear than ever and I trust Wood about as far as I could throw him but he must know whether a move back to Odsal is affordable or not. I just hope it's not predicated on yet another poop or bust tilt at SL.

A poop from Wood will bust anything it lands on.

As evidence I submit the sport of Rugby League.

You've no idea what the cost of maintenance is. Maintenance costs go up and down depending on what needs fixing or replacing. It isn't index linked. There is only one stand and only the roof is an actual structure. The terracing is not that old.

I don't see how the RFL can help the Bulls return to Odsal financially than they are already doing.
My understanding is that the rent they charged was very reasonable and the RFL being penurious i can't see how they can reduce it if the Bulls returned and certainly won't be able to help with the Maintenance costs, Nigel Wood is kidding himself if he thinks this will happen, but he could proof me wrong.
He's leaving the RFL for me raised more questions than answers

Maintenance costs never go down year on year.
If the Bulls can't afford to pay there share of maintenance costs they won't be returning to Odsal, and for the record I WANT THE BULLS TO RETURN TO ODSAL

We’ve no idea what’s going on behind the scenes and being honest I’ve more faith that every single COVID contract handed out to a Tory donor or peer was above board than the shenanigans around odsal stadium.

Well that pretty much takes things forward if the Stock car people have got on board. I read about the idea but didn't know that was now on. So if the overheads for the stadium have maybe been shared somewhat and maybe even reduced to get Bulls back to Odsal I really do welcome it enormously and would guess all their fellow "big clubs" will do as well.

The "club" hardly got much sympathy when they went under, but its different people there now, so I am right behind it and look forwards to Superleague benefitting from it despite Nigel Wood being there

albeit I'm at a loss to understand the venom against him.....