Peterborough Panthers 2023

[Crump99]

9 hours ago, scoobydoo said:

Until the outcome is finally resolved concerning the LP policies,  it doesn't matter who is or isn't involved & the club will remain in its present state of limbo

No fool would invest a vast amount of money from there own pocket whatever there wealth  if there's a chance of funds having to be made available from elsewhere.

If the club does have a future the consortium will then go though and buy out Chapman and who knows have a future plot of land ready to go or even an emotional return to the showground .

 

 

Simple equation isn't it!

[Crump99]

On 3/18/2024 at 2:46 PM, Bald Bloke said:

No fool would promise what he did to the fans before engaging his brain first either , I’m afraid.

Without knowing the detail of what really went wrong, I say that his only mistake was not paying closer attention to the history of who he was dealing with and not getting a contract in writing and signed first before playing the social media game.

Edited March 20 by Crump99

[JoeW436]

Sucks not having a team anymore…even more so now the season has started in earnest.

[SteelShoe]

14 hours ago, JoeW436 said:

Sucks not having a team anymore…even more so now the season has started in earnest.

As a Workington supporter I feel the pain of all the Panthers and Wolves fans who have lost their beloved Speedway. Please keep fighting and don't give up hope.

[1stbender]

Those that have lost clubs never loose hope it may take years to get it back it may never come back but, Support the sport we lost our club many years ago and since have travelled all over the Uk to watch various teams and events, since we lost ours we started a family and the sport has gained a couple of supports! Don’t give up on it

[Manifesto]

On 3/22/2024 at 4:15 PM, JoeW436 said:

Sucks not having a team anymore…even more so now the season has started in earnest.

Keep faith. In the mean time try and go see a few meetings keep the love for it best you can 

[Pinny]

Seen some video footage on social media earlier of the state the stadium is now in... such a shame. Had a couple of great days there for the PL4TT in late 90s and early 00s. Brilliant track, IMO the best in British Speedway. Now gone.

Its going to be an on going thing for stadiums that are built on other peoples land are going to continue falling by the wayside.

[Flappy]

The state of the showground is so sad 

[Crump99]

7 hours ago, Pinny said:

Seen some video footage on social media earlier of the state the stadium is now in... such a shame. Had a couple of great days there for the PL4TT in late 90s and early 00s. Brilliant track, IMO the best in British Speedway. Now gone.

Its going to be an on going thing for stadiums that are built on other peoples land are going to continue falling by the wayside.

It's grim but it's not gone until they get planning approved. Putting that unnecessary vandalism right under the right conditions (hopefully PCC make AEPG pay as part of any agreement) has got to be preferable to starting afresh elsewhere.

With AEPG, their friends and family dumping support comments on the PCC planning portal we could do with anyone who hasn't objected, or who knows someone who hasn't, objecting to both planning applications. Doesn't have to be anything detailed, just read some of the others submissions (click Documents and View associated documents, and note that they only show address & no other detail) and write a sentence or two. It's just a numbers game and there are plenty of detailed objections already on there:

Here are the two links that will take you straight to the two planning applications that have been submitted for developing the Peterborough Showground to make comments and/or objections. You can comment on both applications.

https://planpa.peterborough.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=makeComment&keyVal=RSOMJ0MLIWV00

https://planpa.peterborough.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=makeComment&keyVal=RSXWVDML04U00

 

 

 

 

Edited March 24 by Crump99

[Crump99]

On 3/22/2024 at 4:15 PM, JoeW436 said:

Sucks not having a team anymore…even more so now the season has started in earnest.

And we nearly dropped off the page there. Can't be having that. Need to keep the struggling momentum/interest going. Although it's unlikely,  Chapman might do the right thing and offload the club to those actually fighting for its survival?

[scoobydoo]

16 hours ago, Crump99 said:

And we nearly dropped off the page there. Can't be having that. Need to keep the struggling momentum/interest going. Although it's unlikely,  Chapman might do the right thing and offload the club to those actually fighting for its survival?

If Chapman carries out his said intention that 2024 is his last season in Speedway.

Maybe the consortium should buy the Panthers licence and use the AFA temporarily to run the Panthers team until a closer to home resolution is found for the Peterborough area, 

Edited April 8 by scoobydoo

[Crump99]

6 hours ago, scoobydoo said:

If Chapman carries out his said intention that 2024 is his last season in Speedway.

Maybe the consortium should buy the Panthers licence and use the AFA temporarily to run the Panthers team until a closer to home resolution is found for the Peterborough area, 

No idea what Chapman is or isn't doing or how his mind works but when he says: "would be very happy to open talks over the ownership at an appropriate time." - I'd like to know his definition of the appropriate time?

This was 31st Oct 2023: " The Peterborough Telegraph understands talks between a six-man consortium committed to saving speedway in Peterborough and Peterborough Panthers owner Keith Chapman are ongoing, but progress has been slow." - slow without a hidden agenda, allegedly

The focus has to be the EoES, the local plan and pressure on PCC/AEPG - talk of alternatives just chips away at another element of LP30 and, as has been noted by PCC Policy, AEPG have tried to engineer avoiding responsibility under LP30 :

LP30 – Culture Leisure, Tourism and Community Facilities - Policy LP36 specifically makes reference to the requirements of Policy LP30 and the loss of existing cultural, leisure, tourism and community facilities.

The applicant will need to demonstrate that the proposals meet the requirements of points k-m, in particular with regard to the speedway track. The applications do propose to make a good, appropriate, level of sport and leisure uses. Normally, the application would not be considered to meet points k-m as they stand, as they do not provide a replacement facility for speedway use, and the speedway track was clearly fit for purpose. This has been made more complex by the Speedway club having been served notice and asked to vacate the site and remove their safety and lighting infrastructure, therefore no longer meeting point k and in no longer being fit for purpose requiring the meeting of point l and m. It is noted that Sport England have provided comments in response to
the application.

There will be no local resolution if PCC buckle and AEPG win.

[25yearfan]

9 hours ago, scoobydoo said:

If Chapman carries out his said intention that 2024 is his last season in Speedway.

Maybe the consortium should buy the Panthers licence and use the AFA temporarily to run the Panthers team until a closer to home resolution is found for the Peterborough area, 

Mildenhall?

[OldNutter]

That document on the PCC planning portal that gives the AEPG rebuttal of the speedway at the EoES is very telling.  The obvious anger in the tone of it shows how much Butterfield is hurting and how much the fact that he had no idea at all about anything to do with speedway was in his mind all along..  The fact that he didn't even understand the position of speedway in the sporting hierarchy of the country is an obvious open  personal failure on his part.  It shows that he has had no intention at all of even considering speedway as a part of his thinking when he used the standard proforma approach to the development planning structure.  That exposed level of incompetence has become personal now.  In that document he has exposed the extent to which he was intent on only considering the bog-standard development type carbon copy that has succeeded when used by others in the past down south.  That hollow personal crusade approach makes it very clear that the sort of activities that have made the EoES so valued by the community were never going to line his pockets to the extent he thinks he needs to survive.  That makes him simultaneously both dangerous and vulnerable.

The AEPG approach is to make a significant point in the low number of times a section of the EoES would be used for speedway.  On it's own that simplistic outsider understanding is obvious in every part of the Butterfield plan.  No separate proper spectator sport can ever hope to get close to making a profit without becoming a part of a shared multi-use volume occupancy.  Even the new Spurs stadium has been designed to take in American Football, Women's Football and huge pop concerts plus more.  Moreover, if you are shouting your mouth out about only allowing one more year of occupancy to anything, including speedway while you draw your plans up was always going to make sure that having more than one speedway team riding at the EoES was going to be impossible to justify.  The lack of speedway in Peterborough is solely down to one misguided outsider.  Any multi-use sport facility of the kind that anyone with a single brain-cell would contemplate to future-proof the continued community value of the EoES would have to be designed to accommodate a wide range of sports, both inside and outside.  The areas under the grandstands could be able to house gym-type sporting facilities, squash, badminton, martial arts and so-on.  The centre green could be used for grass type sports like local school football and hockey championships and so on.  Add that to the fact that the local plan only approved 650-ish houses by including the LP30 sections because it was making sure that there were proper large spaces to carry on the EoES legacy of events rather than the Butterfield concrete jungle of houses, the hotel/pub that no brewery will ever want to take on and daft posh-boy psuedo-sports concrete shells, mean this ill-conceived pile of dross should be consigned to hanging on a piece of string in the smallest room so it is at least doing something useful.

[Mick Bratley]

12 hours ago, OldNutter said:

That document on the PCC planning portal that gives the AEPG rebuttal of the speedway at the EoES is very telling.  The obvious anger in the tone of it shows how much Butterfield is hurting and how much the fact that he had no idea at all about anything to do with speedway was in his mind all along..  The fact that he didn't even understand the position of speedway in the sporting hierarchy of the country is an obvious open  personal failure on his part.  It shows that he has had no intention at all of even considering speedway as a part of his thinking when he used the standard proforma approach to the development planning structure.  That exposed level of incompetence has become personal now.  In that document he has exposed the extent to which he was intent on only considering the bog-standard development type carbon copy that has succeeded when used by others in the past down south.  That hollow personal crusade approach makes it very clear that the sort of activities that have made the EoES so valued by the community were never going to line his pockets to the extent he thinks he needs to survive.  That makes him simultaneously both dangerous and vulnerable.

The AEPG approach is to make a significant point in the low number of times a section of the EoES would be used for speedway.  On it's own that simplistic outsider understanding is obvious in every part of the Butterfield plan.  No separate proper spectator sport can ever hope to get close to making a profit without becoming a part of a shared multi-use volume occupancy.  Even the new Spurs stadium has been designed to take in American Football, Women's Football and huge pop concerts plus more.  Moreover, if you are shouting your mouth out about only allowing one more year of occupancy to anything, including speedway while you draw your plans up was always going to make sure that having more than one speedway team riding at the EoES was going to be impossible to justify.  The lack of speedway in Peterborough is solely down to one misguided outsider.  Any multi-use sport facility of the kind that anyone with a single brain-cell would contemplate to future-proof the continued community value of the EoES would have to be designed to accommodate a wide range of sports, both inside and outside.  The areas under the grandstands could be able to house gym-type sporting facilities, squash, badminton, martial arts and so-on.  The centre green could be used for grass type sports like local school football and hockey championships and so on.  Add that to the fact that the local plan only approved 650-ish houses by including the LP30 sections because it was making sure that there were proper large spaces to carry on the EoES legacy of events rather than the Butterfield concrete jungle of houses, the hotel/pub that no brewery will ever want to take on and daft posh-boy psuedo-sports concrete shells, mean this ill-conceived pile of dross should be consigned to hanging on a piece of string in the smallest room so it is at least doing something useful.

Perfectly summed up. It would be very good if you could very slightly sanitise the text and post it on the councils planning portal in response to the two applications. Your second paragraph regarding the multi use occupancy of the stadium as part of the overall development is something I have been banging on about since the start of this nonsense.

Edited April 10 by Mick Bratley

[Crump99]

12 hours ago, Mick Bratley said:

Perfectly summed up. It would be very good if you could very slightly sanitise the text and post it on the councils planning portal in response to the two applications. Your second paragraph regarding the multi use occupancy of the stadium as part of the overall development is something I have been banging on about since the start of this nonsense.

Yup good suggestion. Time has moved on significantly since the planning applications were posted by AEPG/PCC in 2023. The speedway fraternity was understandably initially up in arms and posted its planning portal objections to this unwanted development. Everyone can still post a further objection with additional comments (probably best to say as such to differentiate from just being viewed as a single source duplicate) now that AEPG's mercenary nature, selling strategy and reasoning has been laid bare, as well as their malicious damage inflicted on Peterborough Speedway and an important part of Peterborough's Culture, Leisure and Tourism industry for 2024 and beyond.

And just a reminder:

On 3/24/2024 at 8:54 PM, Crump99 said:

Here are the two links that will take you straight to the two planning applications that have been submitted for developing the Peterborough Showground to make comments and/or objections. You can comment on both applications.

https://planpa.peterborough.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=makeComment&keyVal=RSOMJ0MLIWV00

https://planpa.peterborough.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=makeComment&keyVal=RSXWVDML04U00

 

Edited April 10 by Crump99

[OldNutter]

8 hours ago, Mick Bratley said:

Perfectly summed up. It would be very good if you could very slightly sanitise the text and post it on the councils planning portal in response to the two applications. Your second paragraph regarding the multi use occupancy of the stadium as part of the overall development is something I have been banging on about since the start of this nonsense. 

Done on both.  Sanitised, de-personalised and re-pointed.

[Mick Bratley]

5 hours ago, OldNutter said:

Done on both.  Sanitised, de-personalised and re-pointed.

Excellent.

[Crump99]

On 4/10/2024 at 9:44 AM, Mick Bratley said:

Perfectly summed up. It would be very good if you could very slightly sanitise the text and post it on the councils planning portal in response to the two applications. Your second paragraph regarding the multi use occupancy of the stadium as part of the overall development is something I have been banging on about since the start of this nonsense.

And reminds one of 23/00400/OUT Representation from Consultee (Web) Open Space Management 22/09/2023 which seemed to suggest a similar outcome and use of existing facilities? (made the ET didn't it although I think that you questioned the reporting). Wish that I'd have saved that original pdf. I didn't expect it to be removed and changed due to it not seemingly fitting the agenda.

It also said: " Further to significant Pre App dialogue with the Applicant PCC Open Space Management are disappointed with the current submission of the 2 somewhat underwhelming Applications"

Funnily enough that submission went AWOL and returned on 13/10/23 in a much changed and sanitised version!

[OldNutter]

While I was wandering through the planning portal looking how it was sitting within officialdom, I came across a list of important dates.  One that sprang out was "The Agreed Expiry Date Sun 31 Mar 2024 ".  Looking though Googledom it would seem that this date is important and signifies a seismic shift in the processes.  It is apparently the date after which the first full phase of the planning cycle has come to an end with no agreement between PCC and AEPG and the process moves into the Government Planning Inspectorate.  In the next stage, either AEPG can start again with a new plan based on the original one, or appeal against the PCC refusual on exclusively planning grounds.  This is probably where the Local Plan really bites into things.  This is where the Coventry Speedway manoeuvres lay for several years.  If this process doesn't result in the plan getting approved, it goes to the Secretary of State and is where that end stage of the Coventry restoration came to in court.

Because this phase is now potentially a long spell, the move made by AEPG to issue the notice to remove the Speedway Company assets (track, lights and fence etc) has become critical.  Had they not done that they could have inevitably come under pressure to relent and let the Panthers resume activities.  Those activities could have come outside of the league structure again following the lead that Coventry took when they moved a low team to Leicester for a while and had  freelance meetings with previous Panther riders to keep the speedway alive in Peterborough.  That tactical move might just backfire on EAPG because it shows bad faith and could be used to expose that bad faith in the planning process itself - never a good thing.

I think I said in the early stages of the EoES application that the process is incredibly biassed in favour of the developer and can end up a very protracted game of legal ping-pong  to sort out who has got the longest temper.  For us, the longer it takes and the further it gets the more it will cost AEPG because of the loan charges they will incur and the more chance there is of of it getting binned when the Farmers lose faith with their chosen Land Developer.  After all, from the reports, they have not been getting much in the way of charitable income already for a couple of years  Our biggest problem is going to be the lack of visibility for us general public now the process has moved to the Planning Inspectorate.  I suspect it will be up to the helpful councillors to keep us abreast of things.