Odsal Redevelopment, Council Finances, Council Services & The Private Sector

Be cheaper for the council and ratepayers to fill it in with £20 notes than another white elephant built for the Bulls

 

So not weekly thus bringing in the claimed attendances for the money pit!

 

We used to go every Wed night and Halifax Saturday. Gary Peterson was my hero!

 

Ah sorry, I thought It was speedway that was back, not stockcars. Just remembered they’d given the ground a bit of tlc and enlisted the help of lots of volunteers a few years ago.

 

Not only volunteer labour. There was a crowd funding effort too. I and many others contributed.
This is an interesting insight from the man who got Odsal back open;
Groundhog Day tp September 1997 when we had to pull forward the November meeting to a Friday in October for the proposed 'start' of Superdome. We were to voluntary exit for 2 years [ speedway & stock cars ] for an almost identical facility to be produced! As previously stated, this 'utopian' plan has been in the public arena since May 2021 'IF' it was to happen, we were assured any proposals would include a track [ of course words may be cheap ]. The Richard Dunne centre was scheduled for demolition early 2021 however we persuaded the Building control officer to delay this until after the WF due to the disruption the complex demolition would involve. I think ironically Justin has now retired, the second irony, had it been demolished early 21, it was not listed! The lung of land including RD was available for commercial development as an eastern gateway to Bradford for many years for retail/ leisure etc however, late September 2021, the council withdrew it to further consult on other uses. The announcement late last year that Bradford gained City of culture status gave this further prominence. The council own the freehold to Odsal and RFL the long lease with a sub lease for stock car racing for 12 years [ renewable ] albeit unsure of the Bulls status of tenure. For the return of stock car racing in 2021, this had to - and was agreed, with the council by the RFL.

My own thoughts is this is the 'most ambitious' of 2/3 proposals, centered on 'opportunity' and 'timing' to bid for levelling up money and City of Culture status. What I always agreed with Nigel, Chairman of the Bulls, was a medium to long term objective to shrink the footprint of the stadium to allow 'commercial' development, funding from, could be used then on a stadium of around 25000 and guarantee its viability. That would be a great plan for all.



Superdome was a decade long political hot potato for the council, as will this be. That said, the current 'schematics' may not at all resemble and potential final development.

Schematics at this stage HAVE significance to be part of a bid to attract the investment and, potential 'outline' planning - after that is when it starts to get more intriguing !

Predicting it's success is difficult, as some state and history suggests, there are more justifiable infrastructure needs in Bradford BUT aligned to the CoC status, they seem to have 'legacy' and 'community' projects attached as a lasting benefit and amongst sport and community sports will be 'arts' and culture with a concert venue for the city.

There are also 'interesting' changes in RFL pending as Ralph Rimmer has just announced his departure as Chair as IMG have been brought in to revolutionise the game for the future.

Like I said 'groundhog day' but would not bet against the sport still being there in 10 years time!

 

How about this for an out of there thought ............ fill the bastard in let the Bulls move in with Avenue and we don’t have to listen to this bullshit decade after decade ............ Valley Parade is fine and why should we move up there to boost the Bulls chances of it happening ........... there own fans don’t care less so why should we ?????

 

I'm up for a bit of random violence... Which bastard are we filling in?

 

Too many it's and buts for the project to ever get off the ground, anything with big Nige involved is doomed to failure from the start. For a start this £50 million of levelling up money is literally put your hand in the hat and hope you pull out a ticket with your name on it. Then even if they are lucky enough to get away with that where is the extra £50million coming from (and the rest when the inevitable cost goes up)? I mean, even the projected figures for income and crowds in the report were just a load of made up nonsense.
When you go and visit other major cities you get a sense this sort of thing could have a chance of being built, cities that have the potential to prosper and grow. Then you come back to old Bradford and realise why the best thing to do with Odsal would be to fill the bloody thing in. Intact fill the whole city in, build a dam wall where Queens Road is and turn the lot into a reservoir.

 

That had me chuckling over the eggs Benedict. Commonly known as a slice of toast

 

Voice of reason Kev

 

At least we wouldn't have to deal with burst water mains that seem to plague Bradford these days.

 

It would have already been a modern stadium but for the Bulls, Back in the 90s the stock car people offered Bradford council to completely rebuild the stadium on one understandable condition that the Bulls share the lease with them to give security of tenure and to enable the finance, The Bulls refused to share and the deal was dead much as the future of the Bulls despite the council pouring millions in to the club

 

The joys of BMDC and it's finances eh.

 

Don't forget, at the same time the so called "saviour of Bradford Northern" Chris Caisley was also touting the Bradford "franchise" in Rugby league to places like Birmingham and would have moved the whole thing there if anyone had given him a large enough Brian Clough style stuffed brown envelope.

 

Apparently most of the levelling up funds are being directed to the south east, what a surprise

 

I thought at the time the figures wouldn't stand scrutiny and it seems as this quote still on the council's website is just pure fantasy.

"Independent economic analysis estimates that the new sports complex would attract more than 1.25m visitors a year, more than half of which would be outside Bradford, and lead to £625m visitor spend and more than £1bn of socio economic benefits for Bradford district."

The project was also doomed to failure the way that they added solar farms, shopping centres and hotels to the plans making it more of a christmas list to Santa than a realistic viable project.

I'd be surprised if any projects anywhere are started. This seems to just be a news piece to appease some Tory voting areas prior to the next election knowing full well there is no money to hand out.

 

For the cost of Odsal redevelopment (£50m) we can keep the invaders in luxury for a whole week...

 

Or the Bulls could come to Valley Parade