West Ham Olympic deal collapses

Folev the red

The deal to award West Ham the Olympic Stadium after the London 2012 Games has collapsed, the BBC has learned.

The board of the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) has ended
negotiations amid concerns over delays caused by the ongoing legal
dispute with Tottenham.

The OPLC, government and Mayor of London have instead agreed the stadium will remain in public ownership.

A new tender process will be opened for an anchor tenant who will now lease the stadium for an an annual rent.

The winning bidder would rent the stadium rather than purchase it outright and bear the majority of any redevelopment costs.

The new tender process will be launched this week and any interested bidders will have to submit proposals by January.

Hopefully its good news for Orient who looked like they would suffer the most from west hams move.

J BLOCK

Har Har

Friend Or Defoe

Great news for West Ham fans!

nolly

great news for west ham fans if they stay at upton park one of the great stadiums instead of go to a foam hand happy new shit hole in stratford they will  be alright

Valley11

Wonder if spurs will be 'renting' it now?

Friend Or Defoe

great news for west ham fans if they stay at upton park one of the great stadiums instead of go to a foam hand happy new shit hole in stratford they will  be alright

I read an interview with that fat unfunny guy (smithy or something) he claimed he would go to every game at the Olympic Stadium...

Miserableoldgit

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/11102011/58/london-2012-west-ham-olympic-stadium-deal-collapses.html

WSS

I'd boycott.

Rothko

West Ham will still be playing there in a couple of years, this whole thing is about keeping the track an stopping Spurs from knocking the ground stadium down.Seems like a good bit of pragmatism from the OPLC

Friend Or Defoe

I'd boycott.

You wouldn't go there and support your team? Personally I follow my team instead of not following West Ham. What if it's an important game, you would just stay at home?

West Ham will still be playing there in a couple of years, this whole thing is about keeping the track an stopping Spurs from knocking the ground stadium down.Seems like a good bit of pragmatism from the OPLC

Sounds like a complete mess to me, all that time and money wasted doing the initial tenders. What an utter shambles and embarrassment.

ads

great news for west ham fans if they stay at upton park one of the great stadiums instead of go to a foam hand happy new shit hole in stratford they will  be alright

I read an interview with that fat unfunny guy (smithy or something) he claimed he would go to every game at the Olympic Stadium...

thought peter kay was a bolton fan

Henry Irving

West Ham will still be playing there in a couple of years, this whole thing is about keeping the track an stopping Spurs from knocking the ground stadium down.Seems like a good bit of pragmatism from the OPLC

Yes, it is now but a position they've been forced into after the mess made of the original process.

TBH neither WHU or THFC seem to have entered into the spirit of what was intended and have driven a horse and carriage thru' the loopholes left in the original spec.

West Ham with their "loans" from Newham and Spurs with their insistance on pulling up the track.

I really hope it goes to 25 and Orient get it but I very much doubt it.

Stig

The winning bidder would rent the stadium rather than purchase it outright and bear the majority of any redevelopment costs

So, how long is the lease?  This option looks very risky in the long run.  

JohnBoyUK

OPLC moving the goal posts yet again?  Who would have thought it...

ken from bexley

Not surprissed by this, the tender process seemed to be a mess, and the subsequent events with WestHam being relegated, and spurs making this a thorn in the side to the games PR  machine, with legal challenges, on first look seems to be a reasonable compromise. The athletics legacy seems to be the sticking point that I am unsure will ever get resolved. If they are looking for a long term tenant would Charlton be ruled out?. 

Not for me, but I can see this having some appeal if the dice roll a certain way to people who are in charge of clubs. 

After all there was a time when certain people were in favour of moving to the Greenwich peninsular .

JohnBoyUK

Chelsea are looking for a new ground.  Would be ideal for a club with no history...

Friend Or Defoe

Chelsea are looking for a new ground.  Would be ideal for a club with no history...

How have they got no history? Atleast they're making history unlike Spurs who are living off of it.

Scratchingvalleycat

It looks like being a short term lease with th ecosts of converting the stadium now being borne by the Olympic authorities. West Ham if they rented it would bear £2m of the £5m annual running costs so it is a win win deal for them and a lose lose deal for the tax payer since the contingent £50m fund that the Olympic authorities were hoping not to use will now be spent. Daniel Levy has been running his campaign as a spoiler to get the authorities to roll over ont he redevelopment of WHite Hart Lane. Now he has cost the country £50m + £3m per annum in  revenues to be found.  They should have held their nerve and let it go ahead. Lets hope that Harringey council will impose the strictest possible planning rules on the spuds who have cost the country a a small fortune.

cliveg

Chelsea are looking for a new ground.  Would be ideal for a club with no history...

I think I'd rather have Chelsea's modern history than Spuds living off something that happened 50 years ago!

razil

I thought I read Spurs had withdrawn their legal opposition, odd.

Henry Irving

ken, can you check your inbox

JohnBoyUK

I thought I read Spurs had withdrawn their legal opposition, odd.

Spurs havent as yet.  May change now though.  The legal challenge was purely to question the legality of the £40m loan from Newham.  Now OPLC have moved the goal posts, West Ham are no longer relying on it.  Its proved a bargaining chip as Boris has now agreed to pay for the majority of the S106 agreement with Haringey Council including upgrades to WHL, Northumberland Park and Tottenham Hale stations.  I know Levy has been pushing the OPLC for guarantees that the running track will never be ripped up.  The statement from OPLC a few weeks ago clarified that the running track was non-negotiable and will be reinforced by them rerunning the tender process.  Would expect WHU to tender unopposed this time around with them guarantees in place.

McLovin

I can't help thinking of the period between when the dome closed as an exhibition, where it sat gathering dust, before it went into private ownership and turned into the popular venue that it is today.

Jints

I thought I read Spurs had withdrawn their legal opposition, odd.

Spurs havent as yet.  May change now though.  The legal challenge was purely to question the legality of the £40m loan from Newham.  Now OPLC have moved the goal posts, West Ham are no longer relying on it.  Its proved a bargaining chip as Boris has now agreed to pay for the majority of the S106 agreement with Haringey Council including upgrades to WHL, Northumberland Park and Tottenham Hale stations.  I know Levy has been pushing the OPLC for guarantees that the running track will never be ripped up.  The statement from OPLC a few weeks ago clarified that the running track was non-negotiable and will be reinforced by them rerunning the tender process.  Would expect WHU to tender unopposed this time around with them guarantees in place.

I thought Spurs had rejected Boris' offer.

I acted for one of the parties on the Northumberland Place s106 agreement. Levy is one hell of a tough cookie.

JohnBoyUK

I thought I read Spurs had withdrawn their legal opposition, odd.

Spurs havent as yet.  May change now though.  The legal challenge was purely to question the legality of the £40m loan from Newham.  Now OPLC have moved the goal posts, West Ham are no longer relying on it.  Its proved a bargaining chip as Boris has now agreed to pay for the majority of the S106 agreement with Haringey Council including upgrades to WHL, Northumberland Park and Tottenham Hale stations.  I know Levy has been pushing the OPLC for guarantees that the running track will never be ripped up.  The statement from OPLC a few weeks ago clarified that the running track was non-negotiable and will be reinforced by them rerunning the tender process.  Would expect WHU to tender unopposed this time around with them guarantees in place.

I thought Spurs had rejected Boris' offer.

I acted for one of the parties on the Northumberland Place s106 agreement. Levy is one hell of a tough cookie.

No, AFAIK from those close to Levy, Boris' offer was the key to the S106 being agreed.  Now the S106 has been signed by Spurs, Haringey and Boris, I would have thought we'd have cast iron guarantees from Boris regarding the funding.

DRF

O2 all over again. The public sector do not make good landlords and re-starting the entire process seems to be a massive waste of money. They still have a year to conclude I don't understand why they are pulling the plug now.

Jints

The s106 was agreed about six months ago (Boris wasn't a signatory, but TfL was) but Spurs didn't want to complete it until a few weeks ago - presumably that was the reason.

Lots of press reporting a three week deadline given by Boris and I heard that this had been rejected along with the funding.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/sep/30/boris-johnson-spurs-north-london

 

 

Bournemouth Addick

Jeez, this thing has been a carve up in WHU favour from the start hasnt it? Now theyget the taxpayer to develop their ground for them and a lease on the uk's top sporting venue for bobbings annually. They can now sell their ground for development and just pump the procedes into the players, agents, directors pockets. Hardly fair competition is it?

Addickted

The Boleyn Ground site is worth for redevelopment about one Torres in the current market - and that doesn't include his wages.

Rizzo

The Boleyn Ground site is worth for redevelopment about one Torres in the current market - and that doesn't include his wages.

Is that Torres' current value or what Chelsea paid for him?

Henry Irving

The Boleyn Ground site is worth for redevelopment about one Torres in the current market - and that doesn't include his wages.

Surprised it is that much.  What is it 10 acres?  £5m an acre?