Potential New Ground

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Yellows1

Yellows1

Level: Callum O'Dowda
(106 Apps, 14 Gls)
Anyone heard anything more on this, have we identified any more sites etc. correct me if I’m wrong but the lease runs out 2025.
 
There’s so much speculation going on. Water Eaton has been mentioned near Kidlington. There was talk about a fourth stand going up to prepare for the championship. It’s concerning that we are only five years away from the lease finishing.
It’ll probably take two years to build a ground that’s assuming we can get planning permission.
The thought of sharing grounds with Wycombe isn’t very appealing
 
Marked Ox said:
Basically rebuilding from scratch!
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Probably still much easier than finding land, getting permission, dealing with objections etc etc.
I suppose (if they buy the stadium) from our point of view, the devil will be in the detail - how much of the surrounding land/businesses will they buy, how much and what will they do to the stadium? Where is the return for them? What security of tenure would the club have in the stadium - and how much will it cost? Do we benefit form the advertising, food, conference facilities?
 
Can we bury Kassam under the structure as a permanent memory of that journey he took us on in the late nineties and into the 21st century?
 
If we were to buy land for a new ground, I say we but mean the club or actually i mean the owner/board. What is people's opinion on what they would find acceptable in terms of ownership? Worst case scenario we relocate but the same ownership issue exists with the club not owning the ground, fine currently but if the owner sells up then what? Or is the best scenario, owner buys site and builds the stadium and signs it over to the club to own but the owner retains ownership of the surrounding land?
 
I'm clinging to the hope that the board will come up with a development that delivers both what we need and want and, what will be received with enthusiasm by local authorities. It would then need a short extension to the "arrangement" at Grenoble road while the new stadium was built. FK would have a deadline upon which he could send in the demolishing team and flog the land for a fortune as housing etc. The alternative is this rolling 25 year lease deal that would be a mill stone around the neck of the club.
Looking at recent planning applications it is clear that green belt land is being developed around Oxford. eg 207 house development at Barton.
If only we could be party to what is, without doubt, going on behind closed doors!
 
With the current planning situation, it appears from the outside the best time to get a new site/ ground. Maybe a once in a lifetime opportunity to move from Grenoble Road (or buy the ground and develop it although with Kass** I somehow doubt it)
At least we appear to have owners who are experienced in building new sports stadium and can afford it
 
nick68 said:
If we were to buy land for a new ground, I say we but mean the club or actually i mean the owner/board. What is people's opinion on what they would find acceptable in terms of ownership? Worst case scenario we relocate but the same ownership issue exists with the club not owning the ground, fine currently but if the owner sells up then what? Or is the best scenario, owner buys site and builds the stadium and signs it over to the club to own but the owner retains ownership of the surrounding land?
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Almost anything would be better than the deal we currently have. For us to end up even worse off than we are presently would take some REAL evil from the current ownership. We have nothing to our name and have been boxed into this appalling situation by a combination of shrewd devilry and utter negligence going back more than 20 years. If after everything that has happened to this club anybody felt the need to put us in an even worse situation, it would be genuinely sadistic. I really hope that wouldn’t happen, and I don’t think it would.

I personally believe that were we to be talking about a new development, the ground would still not be owned by the club but we would get a much more acceptable, infinitely fairer deal. At present we pay an absolute fortune in rent, have zero use of any facilities outside specified match day hours and also have no ability to generate money through them from an operational standpoint, and we also don’t even get a penny from food and drink sales. When you stack that all up, it’s really hard to get a worse deal, and that’s before you even throw in the fact that the damn thing was never even finished and only has three sides. I don’t think there’s any reason the club would be given the stadium deeds regardless of what else was built as part of it. There’s no such thing as charity in business, especially at the level some of our board members operate. I’m not even sure that the club should ever own the stadium itself again anyway, because that way whoever owns the club can just strip it all over again. I think all stadiums should be at least part owned by a trust of some description that permanently ties it to a particular club, and means it can’t be ripped away or leveraged for debt on a whim without any opposition or knowledge.

I think what they’re more likely to go for in the event of a new build is a massive retail / leisure facility built alongside a stadium, which as well as providing commercial revenue opportunities due to the retail aspect may also involve council subsidies in relation to the leisure branches. Cheaper land / grants etc could be forthcoming as this development would be classed as benefitting the wider community, and a certain number of hours use for schools and colleges alongside paid consumer rental could be negotiated. It would also allow a large housing development to take place where we currently play, so all things considered it could be quite attractive for the people on our board to be cut a very favourable deal by planners and so forth. Oxford’s leisure facilities are positively atrocious for a city of its status and prestige, so anything that can boost this without it being purely funded by the state would surely be incredibly attractive. Government never enjoys paying for anything itself after all.

A new development would make a lot of sense, and if it got us a better deal in a nicer, finished stadium, I’d be more than happy to help move the statue of Tiger into place, bow tie and all. If they can get a deal that means they make their money and we end up better off, that’s an enormous win.
 
RyanioBirdio said:
Almost anything would be better than the deal we currently have. For us to end up even worse off than we are presently would take some REAL evil from the current ownership. We have nothing to our name and have been boxed into this appalling situation by a combination of shrewd devilry and utter negligence going back more than 20 years. If after everything that has happened to this club anybody felt the need to put us in an even worse situation, it would be genuinely sadistic. I really hope that wouldn’t happen, and I don’t think it would.

I personally believe that were we to be talking about a new development, the ground would still not be owned by the club but we would get a much more acceptable, infinitely fairer deal. At present we pay an absolute fortune in rent, have zero use of any facilities outside specified match day hours and also have no ability to generate money through them from an operational standpoint, and we also don’t even get a penny from food and drink sales. When you stack that all up, it’s really hard to get a worse deal, and that’s before you even throw in the fact that the damn thing was never even finished and only has three sides. I don’t think there’s any reason the club would be given the stadium deeds regardless of what else was built as part of it. There’s no such thing as charity in business, especially at the level some of our board members operate. I’m not even sure that the club should ever own the stadium itself again anyway, because that way whoever owns the club can just strip it all over again. I think all stadiums should be at least part owned by a trust of some description that permanently ties it to a particular club, and means it can’t be ripped away or leveraged for debt on a whim without any opposition or knowledge.

I think what they’re more likely to go for in the event of a new build is a massive retail / leisure facility built alongside a stadium, which as well as providing commercial revenue opportunities due to the retail aspect may also involve council subsidies in relation to the leisure branches. Cheaper land / grants etc could be forthcoming as this development would be classed as benefitting the wider community, and a certain number of hours use for schools and colleges alongside paid consumer rental could be negotiated. It would also allow a large housing development to take place where we currently play, so all things considered it could be quite attractive for the people on our board to be cut a very favourable deal by planners and so forth. Oxford’s leisure facilities are positively atrocious for a city of its status and prestige, so anything that can boost this without it being purely funded by the state would surely be incredibly attractive. Government never enjoys paying for anything itself after all.

A new development would make a lot of sense, and if it got us a better deal in a nicer, finished stadium, I’d be more than happy to help move the statue of Tiger into place, bow tie and all. If they can get a deal that means they make their money and we end up better off, that’s an enormous win.
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Common sense would say that this is the only way.
 
Believe it or not Kassam has spent £250k of his own money on the pitch for this season. Also close to purchasing heat lights for the area of pitch always in shade under the south stand. Maybe, just maybe he’s starting to have a change of heart towards the club. I certainly don’t understand the people slating it for a stadium. It really isn’t that bad. Put a 4th stand on it, personalise it a bit to really make it our own and you’re sorted imo!
 
Yellow Hammer said:
Believe it or not Kassam has spent £250k of his own money on the pitch for this season. Also close to purchasing heat lights for the area of pitch always in shade under the south stand. Maybe, just maybe he’s starting to have a change of heart towards the club. I certainly don’t understand the people slating it for a stadium. It really isn’t that bad. Put a 4th stand on it, personalise it a bit to really make it our own and you’re sorted imo!
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I don't believe that.
 
Even if our billionaires can get Kassam to play ball we'll be in a much better position going forward, not that it can get worse. Even if they're not going to build/buy a stadium, surely they'd be able to negotiate a better lease, which, although not the holy grail, would be infinitely better than now.
 
Yellow Hammer said:
I certainly don’t understand the people slating it for a stadium. It really isn’t that bad. Put a 4th stand on it, personalise it a bit to really make it our own and you’re sorted imo!
Click to expand...
The fact that you’re saying what you’d need to do to make it alright only proves that it currently isn’t great - otherwise you wouldn’t need to do such things. It needs a fourth stand, all four corners then need filling in (the gaping corners are arguably more of an issue than an open end, in a weird way), and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The inside of the stadium is soulless and unfinished, and the public facilities are damn near hazardous at their worst. Considering the bloke who owns it nicked our old stadium off us, and then spent less than he sold that for on supposedly ‘finishing’ this one, which he then maintained ownership of even before the club was sold in 2006, it’s pretty shocking. For a stadium some 18 years old it’s in bad nick, was never completed and is also blocked in by all of his other businesses for good measure.

I don’t agree that people blindly and ferociously trying to attack and p**s Firoz Kassam off is remotely helpful to the club, because rightly or wrongly he has us in a vice and that means spitting at him constantly is basically the dumbest thing you can do while you’re in there, but I’m not going to thank him for a new pitch (if that’s even true) when we pay a million pounds a year to play there. Especially when he never thought enough of us to finish or maintain the very stadium he effectively stole from us in the first place. And trust me, the amount of corners he cut and the amount of things that don’t work behind the scenes is pretty significant. I would know, it used to be my office.

It is absolutely not a stadium that I think anyone could describe as ‘not so bad’ in its current form.
 
RyanioBirdio said:
The fact that you’re saying what you’d need to do to make it alright only proves that it currently isn’t great - otherwise you wouldn’t need to do such things. It needs a fourth stand, all four corners then need filling in (the gaping corners are arguably more of an issue than an open end, in a weird way), and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The inside of the stadium is soulless and unfinished, and the public facilities are damn near hazardous at their worst. Considering the bloke who owns it nicked our old stadium off us, and then spent less than he sold that for on supposedly ‘finishing’ this one, which he then maintained ownership of even before the club was sold in 2006, it’s pretty shocking. For a stadium some 18 years old it’s in bad nick, was never completed and is also blocked in by all of his other businesses for good measure.

I don’t agree that people blindly and ferociously trying to attack and P**s Firoz Kassam off is remotely helpful to the club, because rightly or wrongly he has us in a vice and that means spitting at him constantly is basically the dumbest thing you can do while you’re in there, but I’m not going to thank him for a new pitch (if that’s even true) when we pay a million pounds a year to play there. Especially when he never thought enough of us to finish or maintain the very stadium he effectively stole from us in the first place. And trust me, the amount of corners he cut and the amount of things that don’t work behind the scenes is pretty significant. I would know, it used to be my office.

It is absolutely not a stadium that I think anyone could describe as ‘not so bad’ in its current form.
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Absolutely agree Ryan.
I am totally gobsmacked when the occasional person comes on here claiming that the club has a good deal and will get no better.
There will never be a better time to try and get a new fit for purpose stadium and the owners at least know what they are doing in this regard
 
On another thread I read the lease is up in five years.
If we were to build a new stadium that would take at least two years. Probably more than a year to get planning permission.
The concern must be how much the terms of the new lease would be IF we stay. If we are paying £1million a year to stay there, what happens if it goes up by 50% or 100%?
Five years down the line it is going to need more than cosmetic improvement. It was standing idle for many years so how much corrosion to the metal structure is anybody’s guess.
On the other hand Kassam might now be concerned that with the lease running down he could be stuck with an unused stadium if Tiger suddenly comes up with a good plan to move away from the Kassam.
Headington definitely had a soul and a heart, which the Kassam has never had. There’s not been the number of good days at the Kassam, Swansea, probably the best.
The players coming in this season have given me real optimism and with Matty Taylor about to sign we have brought in three strikers that all supporters I think will be happy with.
I believe we have a real opportunity to make the play offs this season, and also enjoy our finest season for a long time.
COYY
 
A few years ago we could have been looking at a new build project taking years to come to fruition, but the planning world has changed, land that was off limits is now far more accessible and local authorities have a greater understanding of the need to support local development.

In addition, we have a team involved who are experts at these kind of projects and have the finances needed to make it happen. We are not going to be in a situation like with the Kassam where builders are going off site for months at a time or shortcuts made.

My understanding is that we are far closer to being able to announce something than many people realise, and that once we do then things will happen very quickly. I will go as far to say that I would put a huge amount of money on the fact that we will be in our new home long before we have to worry about the lease running out.
 
There is a much mentioned price on the ground around the £13-£15 million mark.
Maybe our rich kids have said to FK will you take £22 million for it? And he`s weighed up the options and decided to bale.
Fourth stand footings are in place already, build that. Four apartment blocks in each corner, jobs sorted.

And they still make a packet out of it.................... ?
 
It would nice to have our own ground rather than one where the ghost of Kassam haunts us.
Water Eaton would be nice.
I wonder what Kassam would do with the ground if we upped and left. I know there’s a housing shortage several blocks of flats on the edge of Blackbird Leys. Hmm
 
Foley said:
Absolutely agree Ryan.
I am totally gobsmacked when the occasional person comes on here claiming that the club has a good deal and will get no better.
There will never be a better time to try and get a new fit for purpose stadium and the owners at least know what they are doing in this regard
Click to expand...

We need this fit for purpose stadium to be ready to move into when the lease is up, because unless we ground share ( which I personally dont want ) we would have to negotiate a new lease with Kassam and he will try and make as much money out of us as he could, even though he wants to flog the land to make a fortune he could tie us up to a minimum lease odnsay 5 years when we would really need no more than one season as a potential fit for purpose ground is only 3-6 months away from completion.

Knowing what FK is like it’s the sort of devious tactic he would use.
 
Peterdev said:
It would nice to have our own ground rather than one where the ghost of Kassam haunts us.
Water Eaton would be nice.
I wonder what Kassam would do with the ground if we upped and left. I know there’s a housing shortage several blocks of flats on the edge of Blackbird Leys. Hmm
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I thought Water Eaton has been ruled out now due to the northern gateway.
 
I don’t think anything has finally been ruled out. Not sure of any other sites
 
Coventry were initially told they needed to stay within six miles of the city centre when they were looking for an alternative home for this season. I’m unsure whether that means six miles from the centre point in terms of a pin drop or whether it’s six miles from the edge of some sort of city centre zonal boundary, but I’d be interested to see what such an area looks like from the air. Not that the EFL seem to understand or pay attention to their own rules anymore, of course.
 
It's all about price isn't it as far as current ground (and Kassam) is concerned. (Contrary to many on here I feel that the current stadium has the potential to be a tremendous ground.)

The club owners are currently looking at their risk/return matrices no doubt. And so will Kassam especially with the clock running down on the lease.

I don't pretend to have my ear close to the ground on this but I keep on thinking Bicester Village tie up.

Seems to make some sense.

COYY - still buzzing from Saturday.
 
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