Maybe we’re reading things wrong but things on the
stadium front may just be ready to start moving forwards again. The minutes
from the CPO Board on 1st November mention that:
“Further contact between CPO and the
representatives involved in the consultation has been made. There is no further
information available currently, although it was reported that further
announcements will be made shortly.”
This tallies with the previous statement of the CPO
Board in which it was suggested that the consultants would return in the
‘autumn’ with ‘more concrete proposals based on
the feedback received from this initial consultation’.
At this point it might be
worth noting that we are slightly surprised that more hasn’t leaked out
regarding the specifics of the consultation beyond what the CPO Board have
already stated. Does this suggest that everyone involved has been super
tight-lipped so far? Or perhaps that the consultation has been highly targeted
rather than truly comprehensive? Probably the latter, we think, but that need
not be a problem providing the right people are being consulted and the right
questions are being asked. The previous statement from the CPO Board gives us
confidence that this is the case.
From the club’s point of view,
a few things have emerged recently which seems to clarify their position on the
stadium issue. Before he left the club Ron Gourlay gave an interview for FCBusiness in which he outlined the
reasons why the club needed a larger stadium. He said:
“We have to look at our fan
base in five years’ time. Internationally we have one of the youngest fan
bases. At Stamford Bridge we have one of the oldest. The problem is that we
have 30,000 people coming into the stadium every week who are season ticket
holders. In a 41,000 stadium you give 3,000 to the visitors, a family area of
3,000, so there are just 5,000 seats left. We have approximately 100,000 paying
Chelsea club members and just 5,000 seats to offer them. We have a very young
fan base who can’t get into the stadium and they are the future of this
football club. We have to find a way to get them all in.”
Gourlay also managed to
squeeze in an interview with Mihir Bose for
Insideworldfootball.com. He stated:
“I’ve said it until I’m blue in the face, we’d love
to stay here [i.e. Stamford Bridge]. This is the home, this is where we want to
be, and this is the location that every other club would want to have.”
As for expanding Stamford Bridge he said, “We
continue to look at it. We have a process in place at the moment where Mr
Abramovich has put us into consultation with the shareholders, the community,
just to gauge the feeling. If there was a regeneration of the area, what would
they like to see? I’m not saying that we’re going to do it because we don’t
know if that’s possible. The pitch owners still have a say. The pitch owners’
argument is they want to protect Stamford Bridge. So if we decide we stay at
Stamford Bridge and whether it’s moving up to 41,000 or 60,000 then we’ll have
the support of the pitch owners. Hey look, these guys invested in the club long
before Ron Gourlay arrived [he arrived in 2004] so I’ve got to respect that and
I do respect that.”
As to whether it is feasible Gourlay’s position is:
“I think technically it’s a difficult one. I think you’ve got to come up with a
plan that unlocks things technically and then we have to have the buy-in from
the local community, because we’re part of the community. People forget that.
The local community has thrived through this football club being here as well.
It’s got to be right for everybody. If it’s right for everybody and we can give
back into the community, we will get there.”
Now, in the past week, the
club appear to have leaked further information about their plans by means of a
private briefing with various members of the press just before the club’s
latest accounts were released. As usual, it is fairly simple to spot that a flurry
of press coverage is as a result of a club briefing rather than the usual press
twaddle because each of the resulting stories take the same basic line and they
all repeat key soundbites. That was certainly the case this time. So what can
we confirm from the briefing?
- That the club (or perhaps
Roman himself) ‘are intent on staying
at Stamford Bridge and developing it’ although ‘local
authorities have drawn the club's attention to Old Oak Common, where
Queen's Park Rangers are now planning a new ground, and the Olympic
Stadium.’ Another piece states that the club ‘would prefer to stay as
close as possible to its current Stamford Bridge site’ which is of
course subtly different to ‘staying at Stamford Bridge and developing it’
but most of the papers agree what the club’s preference is now.
- Even if the club agreed to
start work on the project tomorrow they estimate that it would take up to
seven years until they could start playing in a redeveloped stadium due to
the length of time it will take to navigate planning issues and
construction. This far from surprising. Arsenal took almost eight years
from their initial announcement to the opening of the Emirates. Spurs new
stadium has taken six years so far and will take at least nine to
complete. And the Stamford Bridge development is likely to be even more
controversial and difficult than either.
- Stamford Bridge currently
generates £1.5m-£2m less per match than Arsenal does which adds up to over
£35m less a season in matchday revenue. The club may be managing the FFP
landscape brilliantly but £35m-£40m a year is still a lot of cash (over
seven years something around a quarter of a billion). And of course, based
on Gourlay’s first statement above, the club sees a bigger stadium as the
key that would increase the fanbase and unlock more long-term commercial
income too.
- The club has estimated that
it would cost £20,000 per seat to raise the capacity to 60,000 which suggests
an overall project cost of around £364m. This figure is significant (see
below).
- The club ‘admit that
overhauling the Bridge does not make conventional business sense, with a
listed building and a cemetery amid the impediments, though the level of
the water table is not quite such a problem as had been thought’. Overall
‘the club estimate that it would take 25 years to make a profit out of the
new seats’. The cost must be enormous, the obstacles even bigger so no
wonder the plan doesn’t make business sense. And what is this listed
building by the way? Oswald Stoll? The Artists’ Studios on Fulham Road?
The East Stand, even? None of these are listed according to LBHF or
English Heritage.
- Twickenham is still seen as
an option for temporary relocation while construction is underway but it
would probably be for two seasons rather than one. There is no desire from
the club to make Twickenham our permanent home. Good, although we do hope
the club have a back-up plan.
- The club believe that an
increase in capacity would allow them to take steps to improve the
atmosphere at Stamford Bridge through ‘experimenting with the sale of
tickets’. This is not the place for a discussion on this point but the
club would certainly have to offer some discounted tickets in order to
sell out a 60,000 stadium against clubs like Hull and West Brom. But don’t
expect cheaper tickets when we play the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool.
- Again this is not for
discussion here but it is also worth noting that, according to the briefing,
the club have ‘sanctioned the Premier League chief executive, Richard
Scudamore, to examine the idea of the League's sides playing a 39th game
overseas’. The club apparently feel that ‘feel that the ambition to
nurture overseas fans through a 39th game is acceptable.’ Hmm.
So what is the club telling us?
Quite a lot as it happens.
Firstly, it now seems quite clear
to us that the club is determined to redevelop Stamford Bridge - assuming this
is technically feasible. Regular readers will know that CFCtruth has written
extensively about the possibility of the club moving to a new location and we
know these were live options at various points. Now, however, based on both the
briefing and a lack of movement elsewhere (Earls Court in particular) these
possibilities all seem to be firmly closed. The club has apparently moved on
and perhaps the time has come for this blog to move on too (that is, of course,
unless all the words coming from the club are an elaborate feint – but we are
doing our best to rein in our innate scepticism).
Now we know some people view CFCtruth as a pro-move blog but this has always been incorrect. What we are is pro-club and pro-ambition but also very much anti- the misinformation that has led to the club missing out on certain superb opportunities. We have also tried to ensure that LBHF's activities and weasel words were laid out for all to see (particularly with Earl's Court) so that fans were able to apply pressure to the council if they chose to. But if the club can somehow make a redevelopment at the Bridge happen, with both the help and support of the new administration and the residents (still highly controversial) then no one will be happier than us. Chelsea’s location is unique in world football and the club would be mad to throw that away for a second-best option if the best possible option is achievable.
As noted above, we consider
the ‘£20,000 per seat’ figure, the consequent £364m project cost and the one or
two year construction period cited above to be significant. Looking back at the
Future of Stamford Bridge
report from 2012, it is
stated that a 60,000 new build stadium would cost over £600m and would take
three years to construct. So, based on that it seems clear that what is being
considered by the club in these plans is not a new build on the Stamford
Bridge site.
Another section of the Future
of Stamford Bridge report also caught our eye.
The proposed costs for the
redevelopment of the Matthew Harding and the Shed to increase the overall
capacity of Stamford Bridge to 55,000 is estimated in the report at £275m and
notably the cited cost per seat is around £20,000. Taking into account inflation
since 2012 could the suggested £364m project cost be based on this template?
Perhaps the additional cost would allow the project to squeeze a further 5,000
seats in somewhere to bring Stamford Bridge up to the magical 60,000 capacity
which the briefing suggests the club remains firmly wedded to.
That said, we have heard vague
rumours from elsewhere that the project might involve keeping the West Stand as
it is and rebuilding each of the other three stands – the new East Stand being
built over a decked over railway line. Could the suggested £364m project cost
accommodate a new East Stand too? That is debatable but it would make sense
financially for the club as even if a new East Stand would only add 2,000-2,500
to overall capacity (as the FoSB report suggests) there is huge potential for
improved corporate facilities in the stand.
Whatever is eventually
proposed, it seems certain that the club would have to acquire surrounding
properties in order to accommodate, if not the stands themselves, but the
necessary exit routes. This is bound to include a new exit north of Stamford
Bridge along the route of the railway line which will require decking over the
tracks and which will include a new “green
north-south cycle route past the stadium”. And despite the initial club statement
suggesting any development would be ‘within the existing historic site boundaries’
it
may well also need to incorporate the Sir Oswald Stoll mansions too which would
require a uniquely sensitive approach in order to succeed.
So what’s
going to happen next? Well, based on the CPO Board statement, it seems highly likely
that the club will make one or more new announcements about the stadium relatively
soon. However, we shouldn’t expect a full planning application just yet. Instead
the club are much more likely to first announce their firm intention to
redevelop Stamford Bridge (something along the lines of this
statement by Tottenham) after which they will move into an intense period of
pre-application consultation. This means formal discussions with the council
and the LBHF planning department would begin (though we are sure that informal
talks have already taken place) along with discussions with various statutory
authorities and stakeholders such as the Mayor of London, English Heritage and Transport
for London.
Additionally,
and most exciting for us supporters, this period will almost certainly include
extensive public consultations incorporating some kind of public exhibition of
the club’s stadium redevelopment plans. No doubt we will also see the proposals
resulting from the current consultation about the public space in Fulham Road
and around the stadium. The actual planning application itself, assuming it
will follow, may not happen for another year in order to give the club time to complete
the various consultations and to weigh up the results.
Because now the club seem to have firmly
tied their colours to the Stamford Bridge redevelopment mast, nothing about
this project will happen quickly. There remain numerous obstacles in the way of a Stamford Bridge
redevelopment and the long
hard road ahead will prove extremely challenging and arduous. But the prize at
the end of the road – perhaps as long as a decade in the future – promises to
be one which every Chelsea fan can celebrate.