21 Comments

London Stadium owners living on borrowed time

London Stadium owners London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) are living on borrowed time.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Kahn has previously made it clear that LLDC, as a Mayoral Development Corporation, has a time‑limited role that should not be unnecessarily prolonged.

The mayor said he would be disappointed if the public body was still in existence by the end of his second term as Mayor which is due to end in 2025.

The LLDC responsibilities are due to be split up and divided between the four local authorities which include Newham and which previously bailed out of the ownership of the London Stadium.

The London boroughs won’t be keen on taking over loss-making venues with the Queen Elizabeth Park, the biggest of which is the London Stadium and perhaps there lies the motivation behind yesterday’s press statement by LLDC CEO Lyn Garner.

The press statement could in fact be a ploy by the public body to put pressure on West Ham into taking over the loss-making London Stadium on a long lease.

 

About Sean Whetstone

I am Season Ticket Holder in West stand lower at the London Stadium and before that, I used to stand in the Sir Trevor Brooking Lower Row R seat 159 in the Boleyn Ground and in the Eighties I stood on the terraces of the old South Bank. I am a presenter on the West Ham Podcast called MooreThanJustaPodcast.co.uk. A Blogger on WestHamTillIdie.com a member of the West Ham Supporters Advisory Board (SAB), Founder of a Youtube channel called Mr West Ham Football at http://www.youtube.com/MrWestHamFootball, I am also the associate editor here at Claret and Hugh. Life Long singer of bubbles! Come on you Irons! Follow me at @Westhamfootball on twitter

21 comments on “London Stadium owners living on borrowed time

  1. Haven’t we got a long lease, Sean? Surely, Sadiq Khan and Department for Comminities and Local Government ought to be trying to get the stadium off the government’s balance sheet full stop by selling the site. It’s clear that under the current arrangement it has a negative value. Only as a privately-owned entertainment venue (like the O2 at North Greenwich) or as residential development does it have any hance of generating any value at all. The first step ought to be to move UK Athletics to Birmingham.

    • We have a long concessionaire agreement to use the stadium 25 days a year, we do not lease the stadium. Leasing the stadium would mean we ran it and could do want we liked with it within the constraints of the lease.

  2. We’ve got 95 years of a 99 year lease left……so what a ‘long lease/?’

    What they want is that the dopey PAI bid that includes paying more and getting less translates to GSB. Whether becoming ‘sole tenant’, allowing us the ability to tinker with the insides if the stadium at our own cost is really worth it remains to be seen.

    If the LLDC is abolished, then it *may* be that the stadium would be offered for ownership, either by sale or gift; as it’s a loss-making concern (and a big one at that), any new owner would try negotiate a free transfer of ownership and a massive dowry as well.

    Our problem will be if GSB offer to take it off their hands for free, but someone like Daniel Levy offers them £1 for it, we’d have a new stadium owner we really wouldn’t want.

  3. When I think of the LLDC and PAI in particular the image of the film dumb and dumber comes to mind, equally could be argued Sadiq Khan and LLDC could be the same image. What have we done wrong to have such woefully inept elected officials and I say that across every party not just Labour.

  4. Or it could be that PAI Capital went to the stadium owners before GSB and they got one up on them by starting talks before them.

    Anything to try discredit any potential new investors/owners.

  5. West Ham should offer them £1 for the freehold – I reckon LLDC will bite their hand off for it.

  6. I read these stories you write and it like you think the stadium situation is a good thing. Truth is we are tied to that stadium as part of a rubbish deal. And before you say it so cheap, a deal where one party is getting completely screwed for 100years is not a good deal for any party. Also when that deal is fundamentally with the public, I can imagine when we have a government that is not as invested with stadium as on bozo boris, comes along they might want to revisit that deal and could become very determined to change it, and you may go “we have a contract” well they will have the ability to make laws and they the pockets to make it very painful for the most profitable porn Barron.

  7. What drugs is Sean on? whatever they are, I want some, 95 year left of a 99 lease, is a long lease where I come from, and I dare say it’s a long lease wherever anyone else comes from too. Anyone know what he’s on about?

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