Royal Elm Park

[RoyalBlue]

Would 1000 fewer fans a game outweight the income from the development?

Hmmm.

And if we are challenging at the top or in the PL, that 1000 will likely be replaced by others anyway.

What income? The Thai’s own that land. RFC get nothing from the development other than the £15m we sold the land for which immediately cleared debts. Nothing of REP will be owned by RFC. If that’s not the case and my memory has slipped please link me to what we will own and make money from. Thanks.

To the question about 4 buses I’m talking about anyone travelling from Tilehurst as an example. Two no. 17’s plus the football buses. Not everyone will fancy that. You cannot say the loss of the car parking won’t affect the attendance.

I have to get 2x underground’s, a train and a bus to get to football. If people want to go, they’ll make the effort. Also, if you’re going from Tilehurst you get the F22 which goes straight to football.

The key thing you said there is 'if people want to go'. A number of factors influence that desire. Enjoying the football being played and/or results achieved is first and foremost but there are numerous others - cost of entry, cost in time and money to get there, ease of journey, ease of parking etc. Alter one or more of those factors and the attendance will vary accordingly. The past couple of seasons, I doubt that many people have wanted to go sufficiently badly to endure the journey you do!

[RoyalBlue]

What income? The Thai’s own that land. RFC get nothing from the development other than the £15m we sold the land for which immediately cleared debts. Nothing of REP will be owned by RFC. If that’s not the case and my memory has slipped please link me to what we will own and make money from. Thanks.

To the question about 4 buses I’m talking about anyone travelling from Tilehurst as an example. Two no. 17’s plus the football buses. Not everyone will fancy that. You cannot say the loss of the car parking won’t affect the attendance.

The idea wasn't people would have to make their way using the existing bus network. The intention was to run more of the football specific buses from local areas. As someone who was sceptical about getting the bus but switched a couple of years ago I can say it has been from my experience way better than driving to games. The challenge will be to persuade people to try it, but frankly I would not go back to taking my cat to matches.

The club have already said buses will be free.... whether the cost of a matchday ticket goes up by £5 or whatever remains to be seen!

I used to get an urban bus, I now get the Park and Ride from Shinfield Park - Drive there, park and get a bus straight away. I actually get home quicker than when I took the bus direct and it's also cheaper and more flexible.

IIRC when the Mad Stad was being built the club said that parking would be free!

[Nameless]

The idea wasn't people would have to make their way using the existing bus network. The intention was to run more of the football specific buses from local areas. As someone who was sceptical about getting the bus but switched a couple of years ago I can say it has been from my experience way better than driving to games. The challenge will be to persuade people to try it, but frankly I would not go back to taking my cat to matches.

The club have already said buses will be free.... whether the cost of a matchday ticket goes up by £5 or whatever remains to be seen!

I used to get an urban bus, I now get the Park and Ride from Shinfield Park - Drive there, park and get a bus straight away. I actually get home quicker than when I took the bus direct and it's also cheaper and more flexible.

IIRC when the Mad Stad was being built the club said that parking would be free!

It would have been in the council had said they could not do that because it would encourage people to drive...

[Green]

The club have already said buses will be free.... whether the cost of a matchday ticket goes up by £5 or whatever remains to be seen!

I used to get an urban bus, I now get the Park and Ride from Shinfield Park - Drive there, park and get a bus straight away. I actually get home quicker than when I took the bus direct and it's also cheaper and more flexible.

I used to park at the Holiday Inn, but switched to Mereoak P&R when the HP car park opposite closed, and they put their prices up.

Shinfield Park would probably be quicker for me (and it would stop me being stuffed by the occasional roadworks after night games where they shut J10) but I meet a mate who comes from Basingstoke, and get a group ticket on the bus. That's just £5 for both of us.

I do find it takes a little longer to get home, but not much. Could the surrounding car parks deal with an extra 1000 cars though?

The really sad thing is that when the Madejski opened, there were promises of doing deals with local businesses, yet car park availability (excluding park and ride) is far worse now than it was then.

Maybe not the thread, or hell even the portal for it - but I do feel this sums up local planning.

Developers promise the world in order to get plans approved (in this case an out of town stadia with no public transport connections) but there's little or no accountability to hold them to task once the site is delivered.

Feels beyond the reach of overstretched councils tbf, but it's hugely frustrating.

[3points]

There's something slightly weird in the accounts of one of the companies associated with RFC and the REP development. The Thais have pledged the shares to RFC Propco to someone as security for a loan. The loan has been defaulted upon and therefore someone other than the Thais now own the shares! The accounts then state that this transfer of share ownership is under dispute. I suspect this is a key reason why there's been absolutely no movement on the development.

And with a COVID-19 led recession, the chance of it happening in the next few years must be extremely slim

[Sebastian the Red]

Any news on this?

[Green]

Any news on this?

Vested interest, Seb?

[Sebastian the Red]

Nothing other than my love for semi-commercial development in a town I was once fond of.

[Sutekh]

Planning permission must nearly have expired by now?

[Nameless]

Planning permission must nearly have expired by now?

Could turn out to have been a smart piece of business. Flog the land for a premium price, PP lapses, economy tanks, land value drops and we buy it back for a nominal fee....

[The Royal Forester]

Planning permission must nearly have expired by now?

That depends. If a wall has been knocked down, a bit of foundation has been dug or enough work has been done to enable the owners to say "We have started". Then I am sure Planning Permission will never expire. Anyone know if anything in the Planning Application has been done, or due to start soon? Wasn't the "dome" due to be demolished in the P.A, is it still there?

[RoyalBlue]

Isn't Nigel Howe now focusing on this? If so, I would say it's in very safe hands and whatever the outcome is, it will be as was intended.

[Nameless]

Isn't Nigel Howe now focusing on this? If so, I would say it's in very safe hands and whatever the outcome is, it will be as was intended.

Think he's more focused on RFC projects. REP is owned largely by the Thai's isn't it ? Howe was in charge of it originally but whether he's retained that role I don't know and if he has it wouldn't be the Chinese who would be focusing him on it unless there were plans for a change of ownership of the project (which I think there almost certainly would be at some point....)
If he is working on bringing it back into RFC ownership then that would be good news....

[The Royal Forester]

Isn't Nigel Howe now focusing on this? If so, I would say it's in very safe hands and whatever the outcome is, it will be as was intended.

Think he's more focused on RFC projects. REP is owned largely by the Thai's isn't it ? Howe was in charge of it originally but whether he's retained that role I don't know and if he has it wouldn't be the Chinese who would be focusing him on it unless there were plans for a change of ownership of the project (which I think there almost certainly would be at some point....)
If he is working on bringing it back into RFC ownership then that would be good news....

But. would it be in RFC's or Dai's ownership? I can;t see the club being able to buy it from the Thai's, I could only see it transferring from Thai to Dai as owners.

[Nameless]

Isn't Nigel Howe now focusing on this? If so, I would say it's in very safe hands and whatever the outcome is, it will be as was intended.

Think he's more focused on RFC projects. REP is owned largely by the Thai's isn't it ? Howe was in charge of it originally but whether he's retained that role I don't know and if he has it wouldn't be the Chinese who would be focusing him on it unless there were plans for a change of ownership of the project (which I think there almost certainly would be at some point....)
If he is working on bringing it back into RFC ownership then that would be good news....

But. would it be in RFC's or Dai's ownership? I can;t see the club being able to buy it from the Thai's, I could only see it transferring from Thai to Dai as owners.

It's not a meaningful question really.
'Reading FC' hasn't 'owned' anything for 20-30 years. In the same way SJM owned everything, the Chinese now own everything. Which bit of their accounts they put it under doesn't matter too much.

[Za Vas]

Planning permission must nearly have expired by now?

That depends. If a wall has been knocked down, a bit of foundation has been dug or enough work has been done to enable the owners to say "We have started". Then I am sure Planning Permission will never expire. Anyone know if anything in the Planning Application has been done, or due to start soon? Wasn't the "dome" due to be demolished in the P.A, is it still there?

There are various conditions attached to the planning consent that require approval before any work can commence. The Council website is shit and doesn't make it easy to confirm, but I can't see that any of these conditions have been discharged and so the consent will not have been implemented. On the flipside, planning permission was granted on 29 November 2018 and has a 5-year 'shelf life' before expiry.

[Pat Butchers Ring]

Meanwhile in Leicester https://www.lcfc.com/news/2212985/king- ... n-now-open

Great to see how the city of Leicester recognise how the club/stadium can kick start the economy and provide jobs post Covid. Wish ours had the same vision.

[Nameless]

Meanwhile in Leicester https://www.lcfc.com/news/2212985/king- ... n-now-open

Great to see how the city of Leicester recognise how the club/stadium can kick start the economy and provide jobs post Covid. Wish ours had the same vision.

Didn’t Leicester default on a lot of the bills for their new stadium when it was built and cause large amounts of harm to the local economy as result ?

[Hendo]

Meanwhile in Leicester https://www.lcfc.com/news/2212985/king- ... n-now-open

Great to see how the city of Leicester recognise how the club/stadium can kick start the economy and provide jobs post Covid. Wish ours had the same vision.

You're not comparing previous Premier League champions, current FA Cup holders and multiple European Qualifiers Leicester with Reading, are you?

Just want to make sure, because if you are, you're not comparing apples with apples

[Jagermesiter1871]

Yeh was going to post the same. Hardly 2 clubs in the same positions is it.