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tom cavendish

A New Stadium at Broadland?

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[quote user="tom cavendish"]First Wazzock,Broadland District Council have commissioned reports to help support the

case for new railway stations at Postwick, Broadland Business Park and possibly

at Rackheath.[/quote]Right, so the stations are not "planned" then, they are being researched at the moment, if what you say is true.Basically, with the current economic climate and cuts to most spending, I can''t see this becoming a reality for a good 10 years at least. Which further supports the case of it not being of much use to Norwich City FC.Again it would come down to buying land now, and;a) building a stadium for use without any of the required infrastructure in place around it and with the knowledge that some or all of it may never actually ever exist (train stations etc).b) buy the land and sit on it, meaning that money will be taken away from signing potential new players, to sit on a piece of land for ''x'' number of years (see Chase and the example of pieces of land he bought on behalf of the club that did not turn into a profit for over ten years, probably closer to 15).c) buy land with a loan which then takes funds away from the team every season, and that will be based upon our ability to pay it back at that time, which means we could be looking at issues should we go back down again whilst trying to pay it off (again, see immediate post Chase years and a debt that weighed heavily upon the club).I would then ask you whether you think that a board who has prioritised being externaly debt free and with a stand at the club that is just over ten years old and with many years left in it, would actually consider a stadium move based on a bunch of whimsical ideas that may never grow to fruition.So currently, no train stations are planned, and the only remaining argument is that Aviva could feed their minions at the new ground (conferencing is already currently available). On that note, other than outsourcing jobs to further affield I can''t find any evidence suggesting that they will be moving anything more than they already have out there. Not to mention that they would not provide their own staff canteen etc.

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[quote user="tom cavendish"]First Wazzock,Broadland District Council have commissioned reports to help support the

case for new railway stations at Postwick, Broadland Business Park and possibly

at Rackheath.[/quote]A huge proportion of our support walk to Carrow Rd. I would guess its at least 50%.They are not going to walk out to Thorpe Park and would have to get into the city centre in any event to use public transport (either bus or train) before journeying on to the ground.13k @ 50 per bus or 150/200 per train and all within a three hour time frame.Work it out, you don''t need to be a mathematician to realise that this idea is untenable.

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Couldn''t we host the Olympics there, then we can have the stadium for free afterwards?

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chicken,The club may not need to buy land but could lease it instead and so vastly reduce the cost of a new stadium. The club could sell stadium naming rights to cover the lease.The council want more than 7,000 new homes etc. in the area equating to about an extra 20,000 local people. The council and developers will need to provide land for local amenities. A new stadium could provide a gym, education centre, bars & restaurants, retail, sports, entertainment etc.

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[quote user="FCC"]Couldn''t we host the Olympics there, then we can have the stadium for free afterwards?[/quote]

I''d only accept the Olympics if they accept dwile flonking as an official sport.

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[quote user="tom cavendish"]chicken,The club may not need to buy land but could lease it instead and so vastly reduce the cost of a new stadium. The club could sell stadium naming rights to cover the lease.The council want more than 7,000 new homes etc. in the area equating to about an extra 20,000 local people. The council and developers will need to provide land for local amenities. A new stadium could provide a gym, education centre, bars & restaurants, retail, sports, entertainment etc.[/quote]

I think you will find, if it is indeed 7,000 new homes, that they will not be in the broadland business park area. In fact I believe that is for the general Norwich area. Of which a great many are going up in Costessey. Outlying villages are also being expanded such as Spixworth which has already seen one site developed with another right next to it and another on the Buxton Road.

The Broadland site is going to fundamentally be business so far as I am aware.

Still, even if it was going to be built right next to 7,000 new homes it still doesn''t detract that you are taking it away from the heart of a city which is accessible by hundreds of thousands.

There is nothing stopping the club building a gym into a new stand. And it already has educational facilities, not to mention Carrow Park just over the road.

The mind boggles - how much do you know about our club?!!!

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There was a similar debate on here about 10,000 years ago. Tom suggested we plant food and raise animals, but most everyone else moaned how that wasn''t practical and it would involve radical changes that would be prohibitively expensive. Luckily Tom won that debate and so began civilization. The hunter-gathering traditionalists grudgingly adapted. But never again!

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[quote user="tom cavendish"]chicken7,000 to 10,000 new homes are to be provided in the Broadland area they call the ''Growth Triangle''. See the following image showing where it is:http://static.squarespace.com/static/537dc029e4b0bb0d036f613f/t/53977538e4b0b2d810697a43/1402435183426/BG%20Study%20Area.jpg?format=original

[/quote]

Sort of proves my point really, that actually Sprowston is going to be the area central to most of the growth, Broadland business park is actually right down the bottom hardly near any of the major building work.

Anyway, could you please challenge any of the other arguments provided. Leasing is a possible answer, but only if you sell out and go full commercial and name your stadium after an investor.

Have you got any facts as to how much the lease may be, and as a result how much we would have to sell naming rights for - and others have said, what that may do to the likes of Aviva or other sponsors of stands etc?

Also, as mentioned before - there are currently no actual plans for further transport connections, just a study to see if they would even be viable to propose.

Again, the cost of a 35k stadium from scratch compared to developing the extra seats at Carrow Road?

Finally, if you are so sure, you must have more information at your fingertips than a board of directors and other investors in the club. Their research distinctly said otherwise.

Please end this absolute joke of an idea and admit it is exactly that - an idea, a dream, a possible long term ambition - as in at the very soonest 15-20years away.

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 So an area that is being targetted for housing is going to set aside a large chunk of that valuable land for a stadium ? Truly you are a clueless twonk with little grasp on reality, and little to say other than somehow things can be paid for by some form of absurd linkage. Don''t pay for a stdium, instead grow peppercorns whilst students look after a creche and it all balances. This particular one has the land being leased and paid for by naming rights !  Nothing about the distance from the administrive part and Colney, Nothing about the logistics bar a wave of the fairy wand and it is all solved. Scheduled trains can simply be diverted, or fans (home and away) can disburse at Thorpe station then be loaded on another scheduled train. Have you seen the size of the trains that run up to Sheringham ? Absolute bollox from first to last from our resident Walter Mitty.

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If there were to be a new stadium, with emphasis on the "if" then the suggestion by Tom regarding the location is a good one. The Norwich to Great Yarmouth/Lowestoft line goes one side of the Broadland Business Park (behind the Postwick Park and Ride) and the Norwich to Cromer/Sheringham line goes the other side (the two lines split at Whitlingham Lane, just up from The Oaklands Hotel). The infrastructure will be there, the only issue would be whether or not the existing rail network could cope.

The only other stumbling block is the cost of a new stadium as I suspect that there will be a quite a gap between the build coast and the amount we could reasonably expect to receive from the sale of Carrow Rd.....

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[quote user="Faded Jaded Semi Plastic SOB"]If there were to be a new stadium, with emphasis on the "if" then the suggestion by Tom regarding the location is a good one. The Norwich to Great Yarmouth/Lowestoft line goes one side of the Broadland Business Park (behind the Postwick Park and Ride) and the Norwich to Cromer/Sheringham line goes the other side (the two lines split at Whitlingham Lane, just up from The Oaklands Hotel). The infrastructure will be there, the only issue would be whether or not the existing rail network could cope.

The only other stumbling block is the cost of a new stadium as I suspect that there will be a quite a gap between the build coast and the amount we could reasonably expect to receive from the sale of Carrow Rd.....[/quote]The council have allocated some land for a new railway station (on the Bittern Line) between Dussindale and to the south of Thorpe End.It seems the other station they want for Broadland Business Park is where the Postwick park and ride is currently situated. The railway line (The Wherry Line) runs right behind it. The site will soon be vacant (as they are currently building a new park and ride).That would be a great site for a station because the car park has already been built and it is just across the bridge from Broadland Business Park.Considering the NDR is now going ahead that area is going to have great transport links in the future.

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Buying land now for a ten-year potential development sounds like a very good investment opportunity. The kind of thing Chase did so successfully.

We have to develop as a club and Carrow Road will be even more cramped and unable to cope if we have continued future success, so a solution to that needs to be found.

If we don''t have success then we will have a piece of land out at Broadland in a prime development site.

A win-win situation, but over a long timeline, 10 years sounds about right.

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[quote user="ricardo"][quote user="tom cavendish"]First Wazzock,Broadland District Council have commissioned reports to help support the

case for new railway stations at Postwick, Broadland Business Park and possibly

at Rackheath.[/quote]A huge proportion of our support walk to Carrow Rd. I would guess its at least 50%.They are not going to walk out to Thorpe Park and would have to get into the city centre in any event to use public transport (either bus or train) before journeying on to the ground.13k @ 50 per bus or 150/200 per train and all within a three hour time frame.Work it out, you don''t need to be a mathematician to realise that this idea is untenable.[/quote]Tom,If you want your idea to have any creditability, this is the issue you need to debate. You mention public transport being a huge part of this plan. But, the public transport infrastructure around Broadland Business Park simply doesn''t have the demand to warrant the transport capacities required.I''m not sure the last time you caught a train along the Wherry line, but currently only 2 to 3 trains go along here every hour. Almost all of these trains are made up of 1 or 2 carriages. While I understand a new station may prompt an increase in capacity, to get from where we are now to where it could service a football game attended by 35,000 people would be massive. It simply would not be feasible for Greater Anglia Trains (or whatever they''re called now) or the Wherry line, which is only one-track for almost all of it. The line, or Greater Anglia Trains would never handle the extra capacity required for one day every 2 weeks.Currently on match days, Greater Anglia Trains don''t do anything special, even though there is a large percentage of traveling by trains to matches. They can''t even put enough people on to sell tickets without a 10min queue at the barriers on match days. Even if the line could handle it, they couldn''t get the trains, or the staff to make this workable.Then there is the buses - which you claim are ''major bus routes''. Major bus routes in Norfolk means 4 or 5 buses an hour along Yarmouth Road. Again, nowhere near the capacity required. This means ''special'' buses would be required for match days, which - in the numbers you''d require - would completely clog all roads in and around Broadland Business Park.I appreciate the ''big sky'' thinking, but your idea is not a good one based on public transport alone.

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[quote user="Rock The Boat"]Buying land now for a ten-year potential development sounds like a very good investment opportunity. The kind of thing Chase did so successfully.

We have to develop as a club and Carrow Road will be even more cramped and unable to cope if we have continued future success, so a solution to that needs to be found.

If we don''t have success then we will have a piece of land out at Broadland in a prime development site.

A win-win situation, but over a long timeline, 10 years sounds about right.[/quote]

Not it''s not and Chase proved that.

This season is massively important. We need to ensure every spare penny is available for the team. Why? Because the reward in TV money is more than any piece of land could make us.

Chase actually flopped when it came to the land. We''d sold players and rather than re-invest it he bought land. We were relegated, saddled with debt and with land that was relatively worthless. It wasn''t worth selling for over ten years by which time the damage it had done was far greater than any benefit. A decade outside the top flight.

If the club wants to move thr ground then it really needs to do so in a way that is as quick and as painless as possible and that impacts on the league standing as little as possible.

Right now is just to dangerous - especially when all of the available evidence suggests that Carrow Road is plenty big enough as a site and not "cramped" at all.

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Apart from his excellent side line in scouting what is Tom''s profession, is he an Urban Redevelopment Consultant? Is he a Stadium Relocation Advisor? Is he Population Redeployment Advisor Theorist?His ability to produce links to council proposals and diagrams seems a bit too good for someone whose not ''on the inside''.

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[quote user="ricardo"] Mr Cavendish seems determined to solve a problem that doesn''t exist.


[/quote]

Nail on head.

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[quote user="Felixfan"]As someone who lives outside Norwich can somebody tell me where Broadland is please?[/quote]

 

It''s right next to Lilliput.

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Tom strikes me as a genuine deep thinker about all sorts of things and apparently has quite a detailed local knowledge/experience of the kind that most of us don''t.   He may be slightly different in the way he puts things, but underneath that, there is someone behind the character that has quite a lot of interesting stuff to say.   I''ve no doubt he is/has been a football scout - I''ve no doubt he is involved in or at least reads up a lot about planning issues and long term strategies for developing companies. 

As for the development triangle - what on earth is going on?   What are you lot doing to my favourite part of Norfolk?  Thorpe End is/was surrounded by excellent woods and countryside - is that going?   It was bad enough creating "Dussindale" on what had been green belt, now they are just going to do more of the same?   Common sense would say build all round the city, not just on one side. Sounds like a planning committee wet dream.

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Not getting into the detail of this but for me two of the reasons why CR works are (i) it is just the right side of being too small, and (ii) the physical location and proximity to the City.

Re (i) what I mean is what BMW apparently used to do very successfully and deliberately to make their marque more "exclusive" in the UK and that is to restrict supply so that something becomes more desirable by the very fact of being less obtainable. Right now I would guess that many renew or have in the past renewed season tickets to guarantee their seat. With more casual tickets available I bet you will find STs dropping off, this also makes the finance stream more variable. Look at Boro last year- 40K tickets sold for the play off final but they started the season with just 15K attendances- how much is due to a big 34K stadium where you can roll up on the day if you need to and not have to commit in advance? IMO, the Board should consider this very carefully and it wouldn''t surprise me if they favour a very small expansion, but not that much, so as not to jeopardise the healthy level of STs we sell. It could also explain why an eye watering £30m was quoted as the redevelopment cost of the CS.

Re (ii) its pretty much self explanatory. CR is just a fantastic location. Over the years there have been countless times where the family do some stuff in the City and I can wander down to the ground. It''s proximity to the centre makes it work and makes it more attractive, I love walking down the Riverside now that the old B&P yard got redeveloped and seeing that mass of yellow seething towards the ground.

CR is where it''s at for me, not simply emotional reasons but actually there are the above two and many more factors which just make it the right place to be.

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There is a simpler solution to increasing revenues from home attendances that would be far cheaper than moving the ground or expanding CR to increase revenues, in fact it would be free.Increase all ticket prices by 50% which would be equal to having a full 40,000 seater stadium.Problem solved, whats next on the agenda?

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TGoMT,RAILPeople already go to/from CR on those train services. The new stations would mean those people having shorter journeys and could save money (than if the stadium was at CR). It would help the club to attract more people from outside of Norwich. The rail company etc. would like to double the frequency of trains along those tracks. At the Postwick hub site there''s already a car park, a bridge over the track, toilets & office block. It should be relatively simple to add the platforms.NDRThe NDR would make a new stadium more convenient for a lot of people in Norwich and beyond particularly if there was a lot of parking at the stadium (from which the club could make money).PARKINGThe car park behind the Jarrold Stand has been sold for housing but has not yet been built upon. If that car park was built upon and there was a significant increase in capacity at CR then the lack of stadium parking could become a major problem for a lot of people. Consider too that the population of greater Norwich is planned to increase by a lot so traffic congestion and parking problems near to CR are only going to get worse (and more expensive).BUSThere are already bus services to Broadland Business Park including direct to/from Norwich, Great Yarmouth, Wymondham etc. To/from the Castle Mall only takes 12 minutes which isn''t much difference from going to CR.There are to be bus stops within 400m of every house so there would likely be far more bus services. It would make sense for there to be bus stops at a new stadium.WALK & CYCLEA new stadium would be nearer for some fans and further for others but also consider that there are to be 7,000 to 10,000 new homes built (22,000 new local residents) that could be within walking distance of a new stadium.  It is also worth considering that a lot of fans will have jobs at Broadland Business Park (and a lot more will have in the future) so will be used to the commute. For evening matches a lot of workers could finish work and walk to the stadium for a pre-match meal etc.

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Tom

Unlike many others I think that parts of what you suggest makes some sense, but only if NCFC had to leave CR (eg because a lease expired) or had to build from scratch. But for say 3,000-5,000 extra seats there are too many ifs, buts and moving parts when we have a perfectly acceptable existing stadium which is almost perfect for what we want. If this were a start from scratch job these outfield sites might be viable, but it isn''t so in my view they are not worth significant consideration.

TW.

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No idea why I''m entering into this. With the simplistic responses, it''s the equivalent of arguing with a 5 year old of the existence of magic.[quote user="tom cavendish"]People already go to/from CR on those train services. The new stations would mean those people having shorter journeys and could save money (than if the stadium was at CR). [/quote]Yes, people do already use those services to get to games when coming from Lowestoft of Great Yarmouth. However people coming from west of Norwich do not. It''s this capacity you need to cater for, which in your simplistic responses you have not.[quote user="tom cavendish"]It would help the club to attract more people from outside of Norwich. [/quote]It is a massive massive stretch to assume that there are a group of fans who don''t go to games due to that annoying extra 3 mins on a train. However, for arguments sake, let''s assume that''s correct. If that was the case, wouldn''t you be having the opposite affect on people on the western side? Would people who want to get the train from Diss, Wymondham etc. (i.e. a bigger catchment area) now be put off because of not only the extra 3 mins it takes, but also that they now have to change trains, or get on a bus at Norwich?[quote user="tom cavendish"]The rail company etc. would like to double the frequency of trains along those tracks. At the Postwick hub site there''s already a car park, a bridge over the track, toilets & office block. It should be relatively simple to add the platforms.[/quote]I''d estimate the current hourly capacity of those services to be around 500 per hour. Assuming it is fact that "the rail company etc. would like to double the frequency" (which sounds like something you''ve just pulled from your ar$e), that wouldn''t even touch the sides for what would be required to service a 35,000 seat stadium.[quote user="tom cavendish"]BUSThere are already bus services to Broadland Business Park including direct to/from Norwich, Great Yarmouth, Wymondham etc. To/from the Castle Mall only takes 12 minutes which isn''t much difference from going to CR.There are to be bus stops within 400m of every house so there would likely be far more bus services. It would make sense for there to be bus stops at a new stadium.[/quote]You''re correct. But what you''ve yet to address is how one bus every 12 mins (or more frequently) can cope with the capacity required. No point saying people can ''just catch the bus'' when there is no room on either the bus, or if ''special'' buses ran, the roads bumper-to-bumper with ''special'' buses.Your ideas are completely unfeasible. It''s a nice idea, but in the physical world we live in, we have more chance building a new stadium on the moon serviced by unicorns.

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Tom, since these new properties are in the planning stages there is no guarantee that the project will be built to plan. Also how many of these new residents would even care about NCFC let alone go to a match or buy merchandise? CR is in a perfect spot because of the population density is already there. You''d lose that moving further away.

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[quote user="tom cavendish"]Is anyone able to actually give good reasons as to why it couldn''t become a good location in the longer-term?

[/quote]
because you''ve already told us that the UEA are funding a stadium on their land  and planning permission has been agreed..
perhaps you can tell us which part of Dussindale/Broadland Business park the UEA owns?

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