Think the figures I'd seen closer to 17k must have included the WCC as well. My mistake, cheers

I'd love to see us co-own the stadium and not be classed as tenants.

We can't afford and don't need a new ground

I like where it is, it's central and easy for most people to access. And for me personally, in summer when the weather is good, I can walk in 30 mins or so. If not, I can drive and get home within 10 minutes. I have a great view from my season ticket seats, and when we play Saints/Wire/Leeds the atmosphere is always really good. It's up to the fans to make the stadium a home, and this season I feel we are really getting somewhere, particularly with the effort from the flag fund/Brigantes. Financially, it wouldn't make sense to build another stadium just for us to use on our own, not only the building costs but the running costs. It is frustrating that we sometimes have to change our fixtures for the Latics but it's not the end of the world.

^^

This.

The days of owning and maintaining a multi-million pound sports stadium that is only used for 15 days a year are well and truly behind all but the truly rich. I'm quite happy with our arrangement at the moment, even if it means we have to change the date of a couple of games. What does annoy me though is the slowness of the club to announce these changes - the home game with Salford being a prime example from last season where the official announcer at the end of the Wakefield game even said the game would be on the Friday night!

(and before anyone tells me that was a month prior, I know, but the Sky/ESPN fixtures for the premier league had been announced by then and it was known the Latics were playing on Sat at 3pm)

i love how deluded SaintsFan is. Personally, I couldn't give two hoots whether Saints own the brownfield site, or the already outdated stadium built on it (no undersoil heating? Come on!)... But what I do find amusing is the willingness to forget that the council part funded the stadium, and if you consider how long the residents of St Helens have been inconvenienced by road-works and the likes for the new stadium, it's tremendously unlikely that planning permission was granted without some back-hander somewhere.

No chance the council are paying for use of a room in that stadium.

As for the notion that the stadium has entertainment facilities that will always be open, that would be corporate suicide, and is very unlikley to last in the long term.

The advantages of sharing a stadium (vs the disadvantages of Saints pipedream):

Half (or less) of the Gas Bills each qtr.
Half (or less) of the Electricity Bills each qtr.
Half (or less) of the Water Bills each qtr.
Half (or less) council tax each qtr.
Half (or less) the oil price each qtr.

AND, as a tenant, we're not liable for any fines from the EU/UK Government for not meeting Carbon Emission targets. A big plus, because they can be extremely high!

All this, before we've even gone into paying staff to clean the chewing gum out of the bogs, to stewards, the grounds keepers et al.

The thought that "oh, we have refreshment outlets in our concourse, so we'll get the income from there" is complete tosh. Refreshments have to be purchased in advance. If the PLC purchase food and drink for 10'000 people in an "occasional use" facility, and only 4'000 turn up, that's a heck of a lot of food waste going in the bin. But, wait, it's not an occasional use facility, the board room can be rented, the Keiron Cunningham room can be rented (or whatever they call it)... Really, corporate visitors do not eat the crap that comes out of the outlets of these stadiums, they're bought in, and generally included in the price of the room (which you gotta take, electricity, gas, food, water, etc etc etc out of the cost). There's very little revenue generated from hiring out one or two rooms, that's why DW has 8 suites (plus Rigalettos who are renting the space), Reebok Stadium in Bolton has 8, rather plushy suites, and a hotel attached... They're sources of income which make a stadium a profitable business, not 1 room... Saints new stadium will look all plushy for the 1st game or two, beyond that, as people use it, things will get broken and take longer and longer and longer to repair... In 10 years time, DW Stadium will still be a class venue, St Helens Council stadium will be falling into disrepair.

Would I want a stadium built for Wigan RL? Once, yes, but when you look at the costs of keeping that stadium, no. If we reached a point where DW stadium could be bought by Wigan RL or IL, which would I prefer? IL to own, Wigan RL as tennants still. RL has 14 weeks a year to turn a profit in a stadium... need I say more.

Congratulations on winning a Life-Time Acheivement Award for scraping the barrell in relation to justifying why renting is better than owning a stadium.

It's a perfectly viable and justifiable reason. As a BUSINESS, you want to operate at MAXIMUM PROFIT. These guidelines are very real, and they ARE fining for it... If you don't have to have continuous meetings on how to reduce your carbon footprint, you can focus on what really matters... Running a Rugby Club...

To be fair to Saints from what I have read and my understanding (admittedly limited on the subject) is that the new Saints Stadium is very ECO friendly.

But to answer Saints Fans point regarding the WCC being played in March (undersoil heating) It has only been played once in March (and that was 1st March 2009) in the past twelve years.

I must admit, I can't wait for Good Friday.

apart from the main stand it looks more 'flat pack' than Wires effort.

Most modern stadia are pretty much soulless looking but personally i don't care, they serve their purpose. I'm sure if Wigan RL decided to build their own stadium it would be pretty much the same standard as Saints.

Decent looking stadium!

What makes me jealous is the fact that whoever spelt out the word Saints on the stand using white seats new what they were doing. Unlike the frankly horrible half d attempt to write Wigan in seats that we have at the DW. Makes me cringe everytime I look at it.

Is that V after saints for how many grand final defeats in a row they are on?

Looks very nice but I prefer DW

Bloody hell. Watch a game in the thing first