Mr Fenty on Look North

Quoted from Mrs Doyle

Must admit looking at the plan it shows the existing bridge over the peaks park way to be used as one of the pedestian access point to the new stadium. I actually think that would look great with loads of GTFC fans crossing over the bridge to a game.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

Yes, I'm not too certain I'd want to drive under there on a match day, especially if we'd just lost to Telford!    

Quoted from BS baffles brains

can somebody tell me who currently owns the proposed site, if it is council owned, are the club asking to be given the land, or buy it at agricultural prices, i.e £8 to 10k an acre.  Once obtained, the council then grant planning permission for a mixed development, therefore increasing the land price to a million pound per acre,  OR if the land is privately owned, the club do a deal with the land owner, to be granted planning, share the spoils, and town get a new stadium;  well its a no brainer, a tory councillor owner, a labour controlled council, awash with money.  New stadium on its way.

Quoted from Mrs Doyle

Must admit looking at the plan it shows the existing bridge over the peaks park way to be used as one of the pedestian access point to the new stadium. I actually think that would look great with loads of GTFC fans crossing over the bridge to a game.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

The clubs stake in this is simply to get the ground built and JF is trying to get the Local Plan implemented by specific developers who would be willing to finance the new stadium.

Therefore the real obstacles are a) getting the local plan through the council and b) the specific developers given the council's blessing.

The real questions are  a) is the housing necessary at all b) if it is needed, is this the right place and c) what impact will the housing eventually have on the stadium and associated traffic and parking issues when it is to be located amongst all that residential housing.

So the argument is not about DeFreitas or NIMBYs from Weelsby Avenue at all, it is about whether the ground would in fact be any better located in a residential area on the Parkway than it is in the middle of Cleethorpes.

It is a cleft stick, Catch-22. If the Parkway is a good site it is because the ground is away from residential problems but to build it on the Parkway requires money from people who want to surround it with residential development!

Quoted from psgmariner

I still don't understand the maths.

We sell Blundell Park and get what £500k or £1 million at best.

The new Rotherham stadium cost £20 million (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Stadium). Surely ours will cost less than this so let's be generous and say £10 million.

How does this result in Fenty getting his money back and GTFC cementing its long term financial future.

Before anyone says it you don't make a million quid a year out of a couple of conference rooms.

Quoted from ska face

This bloke is absolutely killing me, I can't take it anymore.

I don't want to be overly critical, but this post might sound like I am being - so if you're one of those who won't hear a bad word said against him, then just stop reading now.


The problem here, and pretty much throughout this entire process, is that I'm yet to hear a single, quality, succinct statement on how this development will benefit the community. That's coming from someone who is on this board almost daily, follows the club religiously, reads & listens to almost everything that comes out of the club - so how the frig is Joe Bloggs going to know why they should support a new development? I know the club haven't decided on specifics yet, but again we keep hearing this "community" term bandied about without any explanation on how this will benefit the community. It's pretty basic.

The Look North piece was probably the biggest & best opportunity the club had to showcase the benefits of the development to hundreds of thousands of people. What happened? Fenty allowed, and pretty much encouraged, it to become a "discussion" (read "massive whinge") about his funding of the club and the possible negative implications of the development not going ahead. This bloke's supposed to be a politician, is he not? How the intercourse has he allowed that to happen? Now, I don't think anyone's expecting him to have delivered a performance straight from the Alastair Campbell school of spin, but Peter Levy is hardly Jeremy Paxman - would it really have been so difficult to...I dunno.... not let an interview designed to promote a development descend into a argument about how copulated we're going to be if/when everything goes to excrement and he is forced to leave?

The whole campaign is being run from the wrong angle, seemingly. Almost everything I've seen has been Fenty/the club pitting objectors / complainers / NIMBYs / etc. against the club's supporters, in some kind of fire-fighting excercise where people are expected pick through objections point-by-point and argue the case for the club. The YouTube video posted above demonstrates this perfectly. The entire issue is being framed as a problem, and the club are allowing this to continue by engaging objectors on their terms. There is a real need to reframe the issue as a positive for the community (by demonstrating some benefit, as mentioned above) and engage with people through a more positive context. Again, it's fairly basic stuff that anyone who works in PR/Comms would be able to help with & make a positive impact with in a matter of minutes, but we're content in sending out a man whose name is mud even with the people who have the most reason to like him!

There's a popular phrase used throughout politics - "if you're explaining, you're losing". That's what the club doing at the minute, and they're losing badly. You know why De Freitas and others are able to get away with the statements they're putting out in leaflets & promo material? It's because they've been able to build on the strength of (certain) public opinion & tap into the fears and concerns of the local population using a small number of statements and comments that, though not 100% accurate, mean a lot to people. It's all well & good saying that the development will be 850m away from the hospice, or 400m from the crem, but people would be less arsed about that if they had some sort of idea about how the stadium would benefit them directly. Change the general view of the development and you'll not only spend less time fighting a battle in enemy territory, you'll also put more strength behind the statements that you do make when addressing specific issues (such as transporting fans from the station).