Quote: Mrs Barista "By “it turns out”, I assume you mean “someone on City’s messageboard reckons”. I agree that if the council were not prepared in any way to entertain any development, costs would have been sunk unnecessarily. However, they’ve invited the detail and had more than one meeting with Allam, which suggests they are interested in progressing. Based on this, it’s standard practice to incur initial feasibility costs to enhance chances of a scheme progressing with provision of detail and a business case. In reality what’s happened is that no plans have been presented and Allam has refused to start talks until he’s guaranteed the freehold of the most valuable element of the site. This is beyond unreasonable. We all know it.
No I’m not. If you’d bothered to read what I put, it was that the council don’t have a proposal to discuss on the table but still have a team in place to work up feasibility and consider the various options, to put together the best scheme. Allam has some £3k plans which he won’t share and won’t negotiate until the transfer of the KC is signed off as a pre-requisite to any talks. If the lead on a scheme in my organisation went to a landowner and/or council adopting with an opening gambit of “I’ve got some plans which I’ll not share at this point, but I want half the land for nothing before we start talking” our reputation in the market would be destroyed. It’s a nonsensical position. You might want to dismiss it as a “clash of personalities” but that’s trying to gloss over the ridiculousness of Allam’s upfront demands.
And the Council are "sat comfortable" on an asset that costs nothing to maintain and provides a home to the city’s main professional sporting clubs. We’ve established so far that in the recent meeting the swimming pool and ice rink were regarded as expendable by Allam in face of the apparently "new information" that there are already facilities in place nearby, so from their point of view, the development opportunity vs the original Sporting Village concept is unclear, apart from the supermarket. The ball is therefore in Allam’s court to provide something, anything, to frame the discussion. Hull City Council btw have a decent reputation in encouraging development from a property perspective. Can’t see at all that them struggling to negotiate with a proposer who won’t start talking until he’s guaranteed the freehold of the main element of the land would mean any serious developer would be put off.'"
The childish comment about 'someone on a Hull City message board' is wrong. To assume it's a football v rl issue also shows a limited and inaccurate perception.
It's interesting you see the stadium as an asset. Due to the money that will need spending on it and the area, it could be seen as a liability. It's also only worth anything as an asset if its value can be realised.
As for the stance about needing the freehold, that in itself shouldn't be an end to talks. There are ways of encouraging negotiations without having to commit to that.
I keep saying I'm neither for or against either party. I just want to see avenues explored rather than dismissed out of hand for the wrong reasons. If reports are to be believed, the Council has no problem in gifting assets to Mr Alam, they supposedly offered Costello, so the issue seems to be on the specific asset. As they're our representatives, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to make clear what their alternative intentions for the site are.
