Wimbledon Stadium: Some Important News

[arthur cross]

An excellent turnout. Let's hope that they are successful in their efforts.

In terms of bringing the various elements of the greyhound industry together (some often hostile to each other), then yes it was an excellent turnout.

 

But what it achieved to people not already aware of the Wimbledon Stadium saga is much more doubtful ... for example, neither the ITV nor BBC regional news programmes for London between 6pm & 7pm last night had any coverage of it.

 

I'd have thought those regional tv-newsdesks would usually be eager to cover the sight of several hundred people accompanying a group of friendly greyhounds near some famous tourist landmarks to draw attention to an unusual London sports/news story.

 

Admittedly, the leftovers of the Thames flooding are still taking up quite a bit of their resources but that isn't now dominating their entire programmes ... and given one of the main organizers of yesterday's gathering, Julie Collier, is herself a tv-sports producer and presenter who lives in a Surrey suburb of London, it was still surprising neither of those regional-tv programmes included it.

[Parsloes 1928 nearly]

It is interesting and unusual for Greyhound racing types to protest the closure or proposed closure of their track. When Catford went there were no protests - the shocking way in which the sport was ended there with no notice was really appalling but not a wimper from the owners/trainers/punters as far as I can recall.

Now we hear that the sport's about to close again with very little notice at Brandon. Wonder if they'll be protests from the Dog Racing fraternity up in Cov?

[arthur cross]

It is interesting and unusual for Greyhound racing types to protest the closure or proposed closure of their track.

It's totally dependent on the track-by-track circumstances of any actual closure or the fear of one ... the current determination of the whole British greyhound industry to preserve Wimbledon follows on (indeed, is trying to learn from) the sport's huge but unsuccessful efforts to save Walthamstow from its 2008 closure (3-months notice at the time) or revive that track since then given the site's yet to be built upon.

 

Wimbledon's greyhound supporters believe they can take that track into the 21st-century with Paschal Taggart's proposed revamp ... meanwhile, many greyhound folk will never forgive the Chandler family for selling Walthamstow to developers L&Q without inviting any rival bids that would've at least let the sport show whether it could come up with a financially-competitive alternative against L&Q.

 

That scandalous sell-off of Walthamstow, followed by over 5 years of the site laying dormant, is just about the only topic that brings loud and united support from that area's 2 totally diverse local MP's, namely right-wing Conservative Cabinet Minister Iain Duncan Smith and staunch Labour feminist Stella Creasy.

 

When Catford went there were no protests - the shocking way in which the sport was ended there with no notice was really appalling but not a wimper from the owners/trainers/punters as far as I can recall.

Now we hear that the sport's about to close again with very little notice at Brandon. Wonder if they'll be protests from the Dog Racing fraternity up in Cov?

Unless owners/trainers/punters have the immediate financial clout to change the decision-maker's mind, there's precious little they can do effectively against abrupt closures by the licence-holding management.

 

Could you or any other speedway fan do anything effective if your team's owners/promoters abruptly closed the operation down mid-sesson ? ... you could squeal as much as you like but you wouldn't get very far unless you could buy out those escaping owners/promoters and satisfy the SCB & BSPA that you were suitable for being granted replacement licences.

 

Catford's closure in November 2003 was announced by the GRA on a blank day in that track's weekly schedule so that the previous day's meeting was the farewell without it being generally known as it took place ... at the time, the GRA justified it on economic grounds while it still had currently-defunct Oxford and now-bulldozed Portsmouth as well as Wimbledon at which to accommodate fairly locally Catford's contracted-trainers (and so keep any greyhound welfare objections at bay).

 

Coventry's greyhound management announced yesterday they're packing up tonight because they've been told they can't be guaranteed any lease extension beyond their remaining couple of years given Avtar Sandhu's intention to sell that site once any existing sporting leases expire ... as Coventry's greyhound business plan is still at the stage of stomaching current losses on the way to profitability in several years' time, they've reckoned there's now no point suffering any further losses as "several years' time" doesn't realistically exist.

Edited February 22, 2014 by arthur cross

[racers and royals]

Interesting interview on RP website with Keith Hallinan general Manager at Wimbledon http://www.racingpost.com/news/greyhounds/keith-hallinan-wimbledon-might-be-down-but-is-far-from-out/1633868/top/

This is the quote about Speedway

 

"Then there’s our Sunday morning market too. Speedway, quite frankly, doesn’t make money anymore, so we’re staying clear of that. I can’t quite see how AFC Wimbledon, on the basis of 3,500 people every other week for seven months a year, could be viable. They’d need a multi-millionaire benefactor – which I suppose is a possibility, but I prefer self-sufficiency.”

[arthur cross]

Keith Hallinan will say whatever his bosses want him to say ... he's a "safe pair of hands" as general manager of Wimbledon greyhounds but without much in the way of creative flair or inspiration.

 

And if he thinks AFC Wimbledon only play one home match a fortnight for 7-months (which would only amount to 15 or 16 home games a season), he's in for a shock when he checks their fixture-list that contains 23 home league games (plus any cup-ties in 3 different competitions) packed into 9-months.

[Vincent Vega]

Any latest updates on the Plough Lane Stadium?

[longlivefrankie]

Was only thinking about plough lane on Monday, if my memory serves me well was the tradional night for the Internationale which I attended several times in the sixties .& seventies

 

Sad loss

[arthur cross]

Any latest updates on the Plough Lane Stadium?

A few odds-&-ends worth a mention without any headline-grabbing developments.

 

The planning inspector's report from January's hearings into the various future plans for the site hasn't yet been published despite originally being anticipated around Easter.

 

Immediately after those hearings, the planning inspector proposed the local community should be better consulted by any prospective developers of the site and that recommendation required its own consultation period until 8th April before the inspector could settle down to write the report.

 

There's a general webpage about Merton Council's role in the future of Wimbledon Stadium ...

 

http://www.merton.gov.uk/environment/designandconservation/design/wimbledon_greyhound_stadium.htm

 

Meanwhile, Labour captured Merton Council (previously "no overall control") in last week's local elections ... back in 2010, it was Labour-28, Conservative-27, Residents-3, LibDems-2 ... now it's Labour-36, Conservative-20, Residents-3, LibDems-1 and that new majority for Labour probably improves how much the social and community aspects will be considered within any future proposals for the stadium.

 

The Greyhound Derby Final is this Saturday, after which everyone will await any information from both the Greyhound Racing Association (about whether the Derby will still be at Wimbledon next year as it owns the rights to that competition) and William Hill (as the current sponsors of the Greyhound Derby who've traditionally aimed to grab some headlines about next year's prize-fund only a few days after the previous final's been run).

 

The "We Want Wimbledon" greyhound campaigners followed up their "Show of Passion" at London's City Hall back in February with a "Night of Passion" commemorating Wimbledon's 86-years of dog racing so far that was a special theme at the track for the Derby quarter-finals meeting last Tuesday-week ... just like February's trip to City Hall, it was enthusiastically supported by those within the greyhound industry but appeared to make little impact on any wider level of London media.

 

Bearing in mind the huge influence the Irish-banking debt-collecting agency Nama retains over the current ownership of Wimbledon Stadium (see many previous posts on this thread for lots more details !!), We Want Wimbledon's next suggestion is another "Show of Passion" outside Nama's headquarters in Dublin on Friday 12th September because that's the day before the Irish Greyhound Derby Final in that city at Shelbourne.

 

Finally for now, the sale of the freeholds of both Belle Vue and Hall Green in recent weeks have probably gone a long way to keeping Nama happy in the short-term about recovering the multi-millions owed to them by the GRA or Galliard Homes or Risk Capital.

 

All of which sets everything up for the two big bits of news on the horizon (in no particular order), namely the planning inspector's report from January's Merton Council hearings along with any planning or prize-fund for the 2015 Greyhound Derby.

[salty]

The vibe I'm hearing is that Hills are to continue pouring money into the Derby next year.

[arthur cross]

There have been lots of good vibes around this year's Derby (including from William Hill as sponsors) thanks to the much-increased entry of 222 greyhounds with plenty of Irish contenders taking on the best of the British runners.

 

But ... and it's a big but ... there were some rather downbeat quotes from the William Hill chief executive Ralph Topping in this morning's Racing Post just when you'd be expecting him to be so upbeat about his company's massive involvement on this particular sport's biggest occasion of the year.

 

With regard to continuing with the Derby's biggest-ever first-prize next year, Topping said: "We're still working that through. It's been a tumultuous year for the business with significant financial implications for all. It would be difficult to commit to a £200,000 investment again when we have been forced to close shops. Savings will have to made in 2015. We'll have to work out where from."

 

The backdrop to Topping's comments is that all the main bookmaker chains are reviewing the profitability (or not) of their least-lucrative shops after the Budget's unexpected rise a few weeks ago in the tax on their gaming-machine profits.

 

But from a PR point of view, for someone like Ralph Topping to be prepared to be quoted like that (or indeed the Racing Post to publish a quote like that) on the day of the Derby final is a real eyebrow-raiser.

[Beckford Boy]

Take a look at the AFC Wimbledon site,a long way to go yet but the early money looks to be on them and their bedfellows Galliard Homes/RCP/GRA as being ahead at the first bend.We knew all along that they were the preferred choice of L.B.Merton so this comes as no surprise,let's hope that Mr.Taggart's fleet can blow them out of the water as the battle for the stadium hots up.Even if Mr. Taggart were to say that speedway does not figure in his plans,who knows what might happen in the future.

[arthur cross]

The web link I mentioned a few posts ago now includes the much-anticipated report that was published today by the planning inspector following the January hearings ... once you've clicked onto that report, the key paragraphs about Wimbledon Stadium are paragraphs 74-to-84 on pages 16-&-17 ...

http://www.merton.go...und_stadium.htm

The inspector reckons it's not his duty at this stage to favour either Galliard's AFC Wimbledon football proposal or Paschal Taggart's greyhound proposal.

However, the inspector has noted Boris Johnson's muddled comments as the Mayor of London which have sometimes indicated the Mayor wants greyhound racing to be retained for cultural as well as sporting reasons (it's now the only dog track left with a London postcode rather than a suburban postcode like Crayford or Romford), only for the Mayor to also say at a later date that another financially-viable sporting use could also be acceptable.

Hence what's being understandably celebrated over at AFC Wimbledon is the inspector's view that he doesn't consider it necessary to specify that greyhound racing must be retained on the site.

The one big thing that seems to be missing from this inspector's report is any guideline as to what happens next (or when) !!

AFC Wimbledon have clearly interpreted this report as a good impetus towards presenting their full planning application for the site.

It looks to me as if nobody's a complete winner yet from this report but it's forcing greyhound racing deeper into a battle with AFC Wimbledon while also taking a swipe at Boris Johnson's inconsistent comments.

Edited June 7, 2014 by arthur cross

[salty]

To read the BBC report it would seem that it clears the way for the football club to move in, but as you say, that is a skewed view of what the report actually says.

[arthur cross]

To read the BBC report it would seem that it clears the way for the football club to move in, but as you say, that is a skewed view of what the report actually says.

 

AFC Wimbledon have consistently been miles ahead of either Paschal Taggart (prospective future greyhound operator) or the Greyhound Racing Association (current greyhound operator) in getting their slant across to the general public as well as their own sporting public.

 

Probably because there's a Racing Post published every day, greyhound (and horse racing) fans become so used to what appears to them to be a significant media bubble because it covers all their fellow racing fans as well as themselves ... what they forget all too easily is that the vast majoirty of the public are nowhere near that bubble at all (or, at best, join it briefly for just a few days of the year like today's Derby at Epsom, April's Grand National or March's Cheltenham Festival).

 

I've pointed out on this thread before that the We Want Wimbledon campaigners have drummed up remarkable support from all corners of the often-argumentative greyhound industry but seem to have made little impact within the wider media.

 

On the other hand, AFC Wimbledon are too far down the football ladder to get daily coverage in any general media but their ups-&-downs and controversies over the past 30-plus years mean they will get attention when they've got any scrap of headline-info worth flagging up ... and that's certainly the case here with the inspector's report confirming the greyhounds won't be regarded as the automatic sporting aspect of any future use of the Wimbledon Stadium site.

 

There's still enough in the inspector's report for the greyhounds to spin their own positive line that it gives them a chance of their own plan being acceptable ... for example, the report clearly states this site deserves a sports-based future as it's the best sporting site available in the London Borough of Merton and the inspector's admitted he's sitting on the fence at this stage regarding the merits of either the AFC Wimbledon or Taggart plan when he could easily have favoured one of them or slagged one of them.

 

But whether the greyhound folk can get their message across to the wider public as well as AFC Wimbledon started doing within minutes of yesterday's report being published seems doubtful to me.

[racers and royals]

The vibe I'm hearing is that Hills are to continue pouring money into the Derby next year.

£250K now to the winner http://www.racingpost.com/news/greyhounds/hills-boost-derby-prize-to-250-000-in-two-year-deal/1669917/

[arthur cross]

£250K now to the winner http://www.racingpost.com/news/greyhounds/hills-boost-derby-prize-to-250-000-in-two-year-deal/1669917/

 

And an astonishing U-turn in comments from William Hill chief executive Ralph Topping in the space of 7 days !!

 

Last Saturday, I posted his quotes from the Racing Post in this thread in which he was unsure whether William Hill could commit to this year's £200,000 first prize again because of the wider agenda for his company of savings needed to be made including shop closures.

 

Now he's quoted (by the same reporter Jim Cremin), as saying: "We were delighted with the reaction to our £200,000 Derby, with a Wimbledon record entry, and one of the most competitive events ever."

 

Cremin (always quick to crawl up to people if it keeps him on the gravy train), even has the nerve to write that this news is "making a nonsense of talk that the company appetite for sponsorship was waning" ... well, it was Cremin quoting Topping a week earlier that was the biggest aspect of such talk in the first place !!

 

What's caused the U-turn ? ... going into last Saturday's final both the favourite and second-favourite were heavily-backed Irish challengers only for 16-to-1 outsider Salad Dodger (a 500-to-1 no-hoper at the start of the competition) to claim one of the Derby's all-time shock victories having been a totally average A3 runner at Romford as recently as Janaury (that's the 3rd-highest of Romford's 8 grades of local runners with any serious Derby contender usually well-established in its own track's top grade) ... Salad Dodger had actually been a beaten-favourite twice last November at Romford in A6 races !!

 

Still wondering why William Hill suddenly feel they can afford to bump up their Derby sponsorship ?

 

= = = = = = = = =

 

Anyway, the whole story about the boosted Derby prize fund that "racers and royals" has already linked is understandably the Racing Post's main greyhound article today but there's not even a hint of anything on the front greyhound page about the Wimbledon Stadium planning report.

 

Instead, tucked a couple of pages inside (and not yet on the RP website), there's the following ...

 

 

 

 

"All to play for" at Wimbledon by Jonathan Kay ...

 

Planning inspector Robert Yuile has done the expected and announced that both the Paschal Taggart proposal for the redevelopment of Wimbledon as a greyhound venue and the competing AFC/Galliard Homes football stadium scheme are suitable to enter the planning process.

 

Yuile held a public meeting into the Merton Council's Sites & Policies Plan in January and ruled the Plough Lane site can be developed for "sporting intensification" with enabling housing.

 

Diane McLean, of the We Want Wimbledon campaign group, said: "The inspector's report has brought no surprises for the greyhound fraternity. We knew it would be a hard battle to get greyhound retention language into the document given the council's support of AFC and Galliard's proposals. However, the inspector did point out that the Mayor's favoured option was the retention of a greyhound stadium but that if this was not viable then other stadia uses will be considered.

 

"What any promotor who puts in a planning application needs to focus on is the local residents and the effect any large stadium with the resultant significant extra footfall will have on their lives.

 

"We, Paschal and I, have been working with the residents for the past year and continue to do so to ensure that any application we make will meet with their approval and also with the approval of environment and transport agencies as well as the London and Merton plan."

 

Quoted by the Wimbledon Guardian, Merton Council leader Stephen Alambritis said: "We are pleased the inspector has gone with us for the greyhound stadium - it is right for sporting intensification. Planning permission will be given for flats, the number of them is to be decided. It is all to play for, for any sport."

 

 

 

If that sort of downbeat response to the inspector's report is the best that either the Racing Post or We Want Wimbledon can manage, no wonder AFC Wimbledon are getting their interpretation of the report across more enthusiastically to the general public.

[jimmy jimmy]

Well if its greyhounds or football, who cares, there's no speedway there is there

Edited June 7, 2014 by jimmy jimmy

[The White Knight]

Well if its greyhounds or football, who cares, there's no speedway there is there

Greyhounds = Possible Speedway.

 

Football = Absolutely NO chance of Speedway.

 

So that is why we should care.

[Ommer Mon]

Thanks to Arthur Cross for his very detailed and insightful reports.

 

Fingers crossed for Mr Taggart.

[racers and royals]

Latest on Paschal Taggart`s bid http://www.racingpost.com/news/greyhounds/taggart-now-going-public-with-wimbledon-plans/1676194/top/

Edited June 20, 2014 by racers and royals