I read a post on the Charlton group on Facebook I feel it's worth mentioning.
Quoted as
I may have worked out Duchatelet's plan? Disenchant Charlton supporters so attendances fall away and ensure club is relegated through poor managerial and player acquisitions. Make it known a small club such as Charlton cannot sustain a ground like The Valley with a small fan base playing in the lower divisions, move the club to a smaller purpose built multi-use ground at the Peninsula, eventually sell The Valley, he's enough money to wait until the ACV expires as no one will want to buy a sports stadium and as the council want to build more housing planning will be granted to redevelop the site, then Duchatelet can concentrate on making money from the sale of the site, developing the academy and selling on prospective players. With Charlton breaking even in the First Division each season the owner can then put all his resources and investments into his boyhood club Sint Truiden?
It may be far fetched but it would be awful if it's true!
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Comments
Don't look for "plans". There are none.
I personally don't find a move to the peninsula an impossibility like other seem to but in the unlikely event it does ever happen it will not be to make a pile out of The Valley site.
We have to realise that we're dealing with our very own Belgian 'Rain Man'. I advise anyone who doubts it to read his interview by a Belgian journalist in issue 10 of the Trust News – not for the value of anything he says but for the insight it gives into how his mind works and in particular his view of himself; in his own words he believes himself to be a “visionary” who sees things others can't.
http://issuu.com/castrust/docs/tnt10/15?e=6744795/30366687
In 'Roland World' if his plan is not working then it's the fault of others for not carrying out the plan correctly not Roland's plan.....
Can't remember if it came from a viable source but it stands to reason that the state of the pitch would have come up during due diligence phase and would therefore have been addressed during the negotiations to buy the club.
The ACV I think still has 3 years to go, and although I am not on the Trust board anymore , they will I am sure re-apply for the ACV, they could actually use the fact that the pitch has been rebuilt, and the stadium upgraded. So RD would have shot himself in the foot there........ I also was told at a Fans Forum meeting albeit over a year ago that the Value the valley program was an 'ongoing process'. of upgrade and improvement to the Valley.
I am not aware of any statements by board members of CAFC to move from the Valley.
Secondly, the fact that the Valley has been nominated as a designated Asset of Community Value, the area is designated as a sports stadia, RBG's chief planning officer: Mr Gittings, explained to me about a year ago that they would 'need some convincing to consider a change of use' that does not mean that it cannot happen , but speculative housing applications, however attractive to the social housing|'London plan' would need to very convincing.
Although the local MP has changed since the election, the ward councillors, and local MP's would also need to be convinced, but politicians can be leant on, so not impossible.
The idea of council housing seems unlikely, as they would probably defer this through there stakeholders like the housing association, so the private companies like Bellway, who would pitch for this and build apartments, (and charge prices to make this attractive,) are again unlikely as the council would require a large social housing percentage, let alone the Mayors office. This after all this is not Highbury, where apartments go for £1.5 million plus.
The idea of a football stadia on the peninsular is not a new idea, it gets dragged up every now again, but as Nick Ranysford former MP said to me the idea that the developers of the Peninsular sites would not consider the spectre of Millwall and CAFC fans on a Saturday afternoon in that area would not be attractive to the developers overall plan for the area.
Of course there is also the transport/Parking issues, but again with a flexiable council that could be addressed, but for what, 20 odd days a year.
Anyway, I could not possibly second guess RD, perhaps the poster of this theory can?
I look at it this way, if I were buying a property and a major part of it needed to be ripped out and put back together, I'd expect that to be reflected in the price and I'd use it as a bargaining chip.
I'm not sticking up for him here but surely the club would be worth a lot more in the prem then selling the ground and club in a lower league. This is what I think has got so many people confused of what he is playing at. He can't be doing this deliberately, you don't make money by being stupid.
I think this is very pertinent and deserves close attention. Roland has already protected himself from acknowledging failure of his half baked philosophy by saying that very few people can see what he sees. This kind of pseudo visionary personality is virtually impossible to tackle or influence. The more you tell him he's wrong, the more he will perceive this as 'proof' that he's on the right track. It was his failure to get 'Vivant' elected into power that led him to quit politics and start messing with football. We can only hope that some new project lures him away from football and CAFC. Perhaps we can persuade him that he should be the first pensioner fired into space? That should be enough rocket science to satisfy what he clearly thinks is his huge engineers brain.
If there was a well presented business case and the consultation process followed I don't see any way that ACV would be able to prevent such a move. In addition the fact that there is enormous pressure to build new homes within London would certainly now override any change of purpose argument and even if that was upheld it would without doubt get overturned at appeal.
The biggest thing in favour of the club remaining at The Valley site in my opinion is that the land on the peninsula is being used up at a very speedy rate. In 18 months I doubt any land will not already have a stake claimed.
That doesn't of course rule out a possibility of using land in the east of the borough.
I still think it unlikely.
He's not in it to make money or for football success. He doesn't give a damn about football.
RD will only employ a coach, that he can trust, to do as he is told, without questioning RD.
Whether he can coach or not is relatively immaterial.
RD has no interest in the first team, other than as a conduit (shop window) for his player exchange experiment.
We are a player development and exchange experiment. The football itself is just an unwanted distraction, as are the supporters.
If RD could carry out his experiment without a first team and supporters, I'm sure he would.
As one of the Trust board members who was involved with this I got to speak to quite a few of the local councillors, MPs, and community leaders. I also with the help of the vice chairman of the trust discuss this at length with the planning officers who processed the ACV.
But you are right simply having ACV will NOT in itself stop a move. It will however cause serious delay and objections about the future use of the land. It also contradicts the 'Value the Valley' project that Tony Keown from CAFC presented to the Fan's forum about 18 months ago.
Any proposed planning application would have to go through the 'London plan' a complicated set of criteria, but yes if the money is there I am sure with enough money and creative solutions a good case could be presented. I know that the pervious MP would have been against this on my conversations with him. It would also contradict the FA, the Mayor, the ward councillors, MEP's, and the local MP's, as well as CAFC who all supported this, and have gone on to invest and upgrade the Valley, but I concede it is not impossible, it never was, and never will be.
RD.could be building another stadia as we speak!
Like yourself I think it unlikely.
And I am no longer a trust board member, and my view is a personnel one.
Every substantial plot of land on the peninsula is already owned by some kind of developer. Morden Wharf is owned by U+I Group, which used to be known as Cathedral. It plans a multi-use sports and entertainment area there, which is backed up in the council's Greenwich Peninsula West Masterplan: http://www.uandiplc.com/portfolio/morden-wharf
Charlton simply couldn't move without substantial developer and political backing - in Greenwich, the developers and politicians are very closely linked, so nothing can be ruled out. And masterplans in Greenwich can change at developers' will because the council will just fall in line - this is what happened with the rest of the peninsula. So the idea of a sports/entertainment block could vanish tomorrow (I expect it's been zoned as that because it's the part of the peninsula closest to the noisy, smelly and toxic A102, and furthest away from decent public transport, though that hasn't stopped residential development next to other jammed up roads in London).
I guess the biggest stumbling block is what you'd do with The Valley site - an awkward plot of land right on top of a sewer and (as others have said) possibly contaminated from past uses.
This has been kicking around for years, was something the spivs were touting around, so for someone to present this as some kind of "eureka!" discovery is a bit mad, frankly - it's something that's always demanded vigilance, and will keep on demanding it.