Difference is Leeds are a Grade A club in every respect, and even without the S Stand Headingley would still meet the A Grade stadium criteria. Besides which Leeds were never appraised on the S Stand as part of their franchise application; given its tortuous progress through Leeds City Council's planning department it was never considered certain until planning permission was given last month.

There is now however something fishy going on as to why it has been "deferred". The funding arguments presented in today's press release don't stack up and I expect there will have to be a clarification very shortly.

Maybe a big tax bill has had to take priority? Just wondering?

Has the test case been concluded?

This was my thought.

legal fees for the test case must be quite high now as well.

I also wonder if this is a manoeuvre to put in a revised planning document in future years. One that presents facilities more in keeping with the original plans, which called for a structure that mimicked the Carnegie stand.

Such a facility would be worthy of Leeds. The final adopted proposal was a real big let down IMO.

I appreciate it didnt, however fans of the relegated club would not have thought so and would have raised hell with the RFL.

It is rather a disgrace that Leeds, the richest club in RL are playing in a stadium that was predominately built prior to WW2.

Aye, although all of it has been tarted up over the years.

Meh, maybe so But this needs to be done at some stage in the very near future and to pull the plug now is extraordinary unless something else is going on. I'll have to do some wider digging on what kind of state the wider Caddick group is in - Leeds are talking about commercial loans but the millions spent on the complex in previous years have been funded out of loans from the parent company. If that well has dried up then it makes some sense especially since as the club acknowledged the final version of the stand that scraped through planning "left a scheme with little or no added value in terms of commercial opportunities." Maybe if Caddick hadn't p1ssed the best part of £10m down the drain over the past decade on Leeds RUFC he would be better able to assist on funding the stadium requirements of the primary tenants.

But we come back to this point: if Leeds are to remain at Headingley, this needed doing. It's never going to get cheaper and (IMO) it's never going to get bigger than the version which has been approved. So where do they go from here?

The redevelopment of the Halliwell Jones has started. Looks like that might get completed. God bless Take That.

Who will underwrite any losses incurred in running costs ?

Who is planning to make a loss?

Have you ever heard the term

The best laid plans of men and mouse ?

I understand why you asked the questions in the first place but you don't seem to now want to hear an answer that does indeed, as best as I can, answer your question.

The key issue is that you don't have to run this stadium at profit to repay the capital investment, because that is being recouped from other sources. So you have a brand new stadium, that will require little serious maintenance investment in the first decade and probably much longer than that. So, you just have to cover your running and overhead costs on a per annum basis. You have two anchor tenants and possibly three as well as income from the conference facilities and the communities use of the sports facilities (although in fact they will probably be subsidised by the other incomes in reality). This sounds like a reasonable plan to me?

I fully understand the way that the initial capital outlay will be recovered , however I think you seriously underestimate the running costs of a stadium of this type , and ultimately there is always somebody that has to underwrite those costs

This sounds very similar to the situation at Leigh , and I think you will have the same problems , the council did not pay for the building of the stadium , they did however underwrite it's running costs , those running costs , or more specifically , the loss of income that have occurred as a result of the stadium running costs will be a massive loss to WTW , these losses will not be offset by savings in costs , if WTW don't draw at least 10,000 fans on average to the stadium , they will lose money , all IMO of course

Why always? Only if the stadium operating company runs at a loss? They don't plan to run at a loss because they have other offset income streams, the largest of which is the conference facilities. It was felt that Wakefield could operate a Championship side from the new stadium if they were not given a licence, without the need for anyone to underwrite any losses. I understand it was tight, but possible. However, it was felt that a second tenant would be required to make this a longer term solution (if Wakefield were never to return!!!) and keep the rental costs lower.



Who did pay and how did they recover their capital investment? Serious question?

Greenbank construction , they received other building land from the council

Nobody ever ' plans ' a loss , but it tends to happen quite a lot , that's why an underwriter , usually central or local government is involved