Just supposing... by
RAFCBLUE 2 Jan 2023 19:59Just to come back to the OP, there are three main themes to this which the Trust's newsletter puts neatly into the public domain.
1. Current cost of doing business
The quoted £500,000 to rent / hire facilities is an astronomical figure when you reference it to the recent Chairman's Christmas message which stated that the club loses £18,750 a week.
That means that a large part of that weekly loss - say £10,000 per week - is attributed to not having the facilities in place for being a professional football club. That £10,000 of cost is eradicated by having an owned facility of some sort.
Ignoring the numbers for a minute - that means that RAFC is subsidising a good number of sporting facilities both in Rochdale and across the North West with rental rather than owning / having access to a facility which is free at the point of use.
£500,000 is 2,000 £250 season tickets.
If RAFC was not subsidising those facilities then they would have to find that money too from somewhere. This highlights the significant inter-connectivity of sport driving by a professional football club across the wider borough. If something bad happens to the football club then those facilities suffer an equivalent downturn in fortunes and equally success for the club is good for those organisations too.
2. Sourcing land and having that land allocated for sports use not housing.
The issue we have had as a club for years is the sourcing of land. Numerous sites have been promised, earmarked, reviewed and identified and none have ever come to fruition. Bowlee, land off the M62 and various other sites have been touted over the years with no actual progression of land.
The obvious reason for that is that if you are a seller of land it is far more lucrative to build houses on available land rather than any other form of commercial facility. Equally, if you are seller of land you want the best price now that you can get for that land.
The demolition of the former Church Inn pub and creation of housing is the best example I can think off for that.
To resolve this the only party who can help is the Council. This is by making delivery of a training ground / community facility / sports pitches part of a local plan led commitment, possibly funded by Section 106 contributions from other developers in the borough.
3. The role of the investor in speculative development
Put harshly there is not a serious enough economic return for an individual investor to take a punt on the speculative development of any facility without a guaranteed return. If you had £1m sitting doing nothing and could get 5% (£50,000) per annum on that in a savings account then what chance are you going to risk that £1m in a scheme that does not have a guaranteed outcome and / or is tied to the sporting fortunes of another commercial organisation that you are not involved in.
Thats before all of the problems of sourcing the land and delivering a successful development.
4. What does that mean for us in practice?
For RAFC the support of the Council will be crucial if this training ground dream is to be ever developed out. Not only does the land need to be found but the priority of the football club, for the benefit of the wider town, is something that only local and possibly even central government can solve. Local and central government have access to funding that smaller organisations don't.
Here's a live example, going on under 10 miles from Spotland:
https://www.manchesterworld.uk/news/new-football-pitch-and-pavilion-to-be-built-in-radcliffe-3795244
If we look across the road at Bury, their council is doing exactly this - the link above is showing - Bury council has been working with Radcliffe FC, the Football Foundation and Lancashire County FA on funding the project.
The proposed 3G pitch and pavilion will be managed by the Radcliffe Football Foundation under a long term management lease from Bury Council.
And from a Council that don't have a League team to support following the shenanigans of Messers Day and Dale at Gigg Lane.
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