Ha. I presume all other clubs pay business rates. Good to learn that the Press Association have been conducting their own investigations and using FOI. More material for the inquiry.
Looks like they won’t be paying, it’s not their stadium and they only use it 25 days a year. But the club said they would pay all they should pay. Sod all.
City AM ran the story this morning, but their website is always a little slow and the online version at the moment is a shortened version.
In the paper edition, they quote rates specialists CVC saying that the variances in the Premier League are considerable. The extremes being Bournemouth paying £86,000 and Spurs at £3.5m.
To be fair to WHam, not really down to them (the delay) at the moment. They can't pay a bill that hasn't been decided/delivered. The Valuation Office Agency need to pull their finger out and agree the split.
City AM ran the story this morning, but their website is always a little slow and the online version at the moment is a shortened version.
In the paper edition, they quote rates specialists CVC saying that the variances in the Premier League are considerable. The extremes being Bournemouth paying £86,000 and Spurs at £3.5m.
To be fair to WHam, not really down to them (the delay) at the moment. They can't pay a bill that hasn't been decided/delivered. The Valuation Office Agency need to pull their finger out and agree the split.
Interesting that Spurs pay more than Chelsea, I'm guessing it's because the WHL site they own at the moment is much larger (the fact that they are able to build their ground almost next door to the old one shows that)
It is laughable that they come out with the old "we only use it 25 days a year" line. The contract is such that hardly anyone else could use it in season. Try asking your council for a rebate on your CT cos you only sleep there 25 days a year.
It is laughable that they come out with the old "we only use it 25 days a year" line. The contract is such that hardly anyone else could use it in season. Try asking your council for a rebate on your CT cos you only sleep there 25 days a year.
Does the club own and pay the staff at the WHU Club shop that is located there Prague?
TBF, technically they do only rent the place out 25 days a year so why would they be liable to council tax ? If you or I rented a place for a weekend we wouldn't expect to pay the rates on it as well. The person who does pay the rates will have factored that cost into the rental fee. If the rental fee hasn't taken that cost into account then somebody else is to blame, not whu. That's the person who should be asked the questions, not whu.
TBF, technically they do only rent the place out 25 days a year so why would they be liable to council tax ? If you or I rented a place for a weekend we wouldn't expect to pay the rates on it as well. The person who does pay the rates will have factored that cost into the rental fee. If the rental fee hasn't taken that cost into account then somebody else is to blame, not whu. That's the person who should be asked the questions, not whu.
But if you rent a house you do and you don't get a rebate if you spend the summer on holiday.
It’s also decked out in West Ham colours and has West Ham lounges. Evidence like this would be used against a normal business. Do they have no revenue stream from events outside football? If they do, be interesting to know where events are held if they do.
Maybe such a low cost base means they don’t need to do this.
The 25 days a year is a deliberate misinformation. As we proved to the satisfaction of the Information Tribunal, the contract ties the stadium up for far longer than that. They have to allow one day either side to take down and put back up the West Ham footie stuff, if another user wants to rent. In addition, the Event Calendar has to reserve not just a given Saturday but any other days which Sky may move a game to at short notice. They also have been allowed to train on it. I hope it is clear that therefore they rent it for far more than the 25 days when football is played. They have office space which is in permanent use too.
Technically they they are not liable for business rates as every other footie club is ( we will have to find out if Man. City pay) but our point has always been, thatbif an experienced football commercial manager had been deployed to negotiate the contract, instead of a load of stuffed suits from PwC, he would have spotted that give away. And the hospitality, and the stewarding and the ticketing, and police costs. And West Ham would have been happy to concede all that and pay at least double the rent. That has always been our central argument, and it is pretty straightforward once you cut through Gullivan's crap and the LLDC's pathetic cover up of their own incompetence.
@cafc999 the club shop premises are included in the rent, I am almost certain. The staff, that is one I haven't thought of, and must do so. We know that the staff at the ticket office are paid for by the stadium operator. West Ham' s only cost of Sales are printing the bloody tickets and delivering them. Seriously.
@PragueAddick their is also one other thing that I have often wondered while working over in Stratford. That is, do WHU pay to advertise their games on that massive electronic screen that shines out over towards Westfield?
The 25 days is simply a number used to arrive at a rent, it has no correlation to effective rights of occupation or denial of any other rights of occupation.
The fact that it wasn't even clear who would be liable for rates, and the contract doesn't give power to charge WH a portion of the rates that fall on the stadium, is yet more evidence of the sheer incompetence of those who signed off this deal.
Something cropped up on Thursday, and I would appreciate anyone's help, specifically what you might know about GLA member for Bexleyheath, Gareth Bacon.
I was alerted by a complete stranger, via the FOI website, to a video recording of the GLA Budget Monitoring sub-committee on Wednesday.
The text below the video sounded encouraging : The Budget and Performance Sub Committee will discuss the financial performance of the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) in 2017-18, amid concerns over its £35.3 million budget management. The discussion will include the un-profitable London stadium, the cultural and education district, affordable housing and long-term financial sustainability.
So I was somewhat aghast to see how Mr Bacon as Chair seemed mainly concerned with attacking the supposed delay in the completion of the Inquiry. (You can it that soon after the start of the video) . At first I took it at face value but when later on he allowed the LLDC to get away without any grilling on the current P&L , I started to smell a rat (from 31 mins onwards Goldstone admits they are loss-making, without giving any figures, then blithely informs us that they have suspended search for a new naming rights sponsor! And that they are "looking at" more cost effective ways of removing the seating - (on 26 minutes)). As it becomes clearer that Bacon wants to present the Inquiry as a waste of taxpayers money (at a fixed cost of 150k) he asks the LLDC if they think we are getting value for money. Which, as we have written, is a bit like asking Tony Blair if he thinks Chilcott is going to be value for money.
Mr Bacon is a Tory, and we now start to suspect that he is a Johnson fan-boy. @Airman Brown has already said that he believes he is, and one of ours has also uncovered a paid role that Johnson conferred on Bacon.
Does anybody else have any helpful info on Mr Bacon?
Does anyone know what would actually happen if West Ham are relegated?
I believe the "rent" would be halved but, against that, the costs for stewarding, policing, ticketing etc would also decrease. Would the stadium be reconfigured every year if the crowds dropped below 25000? This could be a huge saving!
I always assumed the losses would be greater in the event of relegation but is there a possibility the tax payer may actually profit from West Ham's demise?
Plenty of stuff on Gareth Bacon if you do a google search, might be helpful?
Badger mate, there is a Lifer who thinks I do nothing else but use Google :-)
I am sure there is lots of "stuff", but being a bit overloaded and this coming out of the blue I was just hoping to find someone who knows about any specific links between him and Johnson.
We already know about this one, his appointment by Johnson as Chairman of Fire and Emergency Planning Authority.
Does anyone know what would actually happen if West Ham are relegated?
I believe the "rent" would be halved but, against that, the costs for stewarding, policing, ticketing etc would also decrease. Would the stadium be reconfigured every year if the crowds dropped below 25000? This could be a huge saving!
I always assumed the losses would be greater in the event of relegation but is there a possibility the tax payer may actually profit from West Ham's demise?
The taxpayer has to pay them 100m in order to ensure they get back to the Premiership.
Does anyone know what would actually happen if West Ham are relegated?
I believe the "rent" would be halved but, against that, the costs for stewarding, policing, ticketing etc would also decrease. Would the stadium be reconfigured every year if the crowds dropped below 25000? This could be a huge saving!
I always assumed the losses would be greater in the event of relegation but is there a possibility the tax payer may actually profit from West Ham's demise?
There is no way for the stadium to be substantially reconfigured. It's bad enough with the "retractable" seats which can only be retracted at a cost of £8m a pop, reportedly.
The general view is that overheads would drop but certainly not by the same amount as the 50% drop in revenue.
Naming rights are in fact the main revenue stream for the stadium, not West Ham's rent. Current revenue from naming rights now, and foreseeable future: £0. Nix, nic, nada.
Something cropped up on Thursday, and I would appreciate anyone's help, specifically what you might know about GLA member for Bexleyheath, Gareth Bacon.
I was alerted by a complete stranger, via the FOI website, to a video recording of the GLA Budget Monitoring sub-committee on Wednesday.
The text below the video sounded encouraging : The Budget and Performance Sub Committee will discuss the financial performance of the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) in 2017-18, amid concerns over its £35.3 million budget management. The discussion will include the un-profitable London stadium, the cultural and education district, affordable housing and long-term financial sustainability.
So I was somewhat aghast to see how Mr Bacon as Chair seemed mainly concerned with attacking the supposed delay in the completion of the Inquiry. (You can it that soon after the start of the video) . At first I took it at face value but when later on he allowed the LLDC to get away without any grilling on the current P&L , I started to smell a rat (from 31 mins onwards Goldstone admits they are loss-making, without giving any figures, then blithely informs us that they have suspended search for a new naming rights sponsor! And that they are "looking at" more cost effective ways of removing the seating - (on 26 minutes)). As it becomes clearer that Bacon wants to present the Inquiry as a waste of taxpayers money (at a fixed cost of 150k) he asks the LLDC if they think we are getting value for money. Which, as we have written, is a bit like asking Tony Blair if he thinks Chilcott is going to be value for money.
Mr Bacon is a Tory, and we now start to suspect that he is a Johnson fan-boy. @Airman Brown has already said that he believes he is, and one of ours has also uncovered a paid role that Johnson conferred on Bacon.
Does anybody else have any helpful info on Mr Bacon?
Something cropped up on Thursday, and I would appreciate anyone's help, specifically what you might know about GLA member for Bexleyheath, Gareth Bacon.
I was alerted by a complete stranger, via the FOI website, to a video recording of the GLA Budget Monitoring sub-committee on Wednesday.
The text below the video sounded encouraging : The Budget and Performance Sub Committee will discuss the financial performance of the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) in 2017-18, amid concerns over its £35.3 million budget management. The discussion will include the un-profitable London stadium, the cultural and education district, affordable housing and long-term financial sustainability.
So I was somewhat aghast to see how Mr Bacon as Chair seemed mainly concerned with attacking the supposed delay in the completion of the Inquiry. (You can it that soon after the start of the video) . At first I took it at face value but when later on he allowed the LLDC to get away without any grilling on the current P&L , I started to smell a rat (from 31 mins onwards Goldstone admits they are loss-making, without giving any figures, then blithely informs us that they have suspended search for a new naming rights sponsor! And that they are "looking at" more cost effective ways of removing the seating - (on 26 minutes)). As it becomes clearer that Bacon wants to present the Inquiry as a waste of taxpayers money (at a fixed cost of 150k) he asks the LLDC if they think we are getting value for money. Which, as we have written, is a bit like asking Tony Blair if he thinks Chilcott is going to be value for money.
Mr Bacon is a Tory, and we now start to suspect that he is a Johnson fan-boy. @Airman Brown has already said that he believes he is, and one of ours has also uncovered a paid role that Johnson conferred on Bacon.
Does anybody else have any helpful info on Mr Bacon?
Does anyone know what would actually happen if West Ham are relegated?
I believe the "rent" would be halved but, against that, the costs for stewarding, policing, ticketing etc would also decrease. Would the stadium be reconfigured every year if the crowds dropped below 25000? This could be a huge saving!
I always assumed the losses would be greater in the event of relegation but is there a possibility the tax payer may actually profit from West Ham's demise?
There is no way for the stadium to be substantially reconfigured. It's bad enough with the "retractable" seats which can only be retracted at a cost of £8m a pop, reportedly.
The general view is that overheads would drop but certainly not by the same amount as the 50% drop in revenue.
Naming rights are in fact the main revenue stream for the stadium, not West Ham's rent. Current revenue from naming rights now, and foreseeable future: £0. Nix, nic, nada.
cost of £8m
I'd be interested to know if there is a breakdown of this cost.
Does anyone know what would actually happen if West Ham are relegated?
I believe the "rent" would be halved but, against that, the costs for stewarding, policing, ticketing etc would also decrease. Would the stadium be reconfigured every year if the crowds dropped below 25000? This could be a huge saving!
I always assumed the losses would be greater in the event of relegation but is there a possibility the tax payer may actually profit from West Ham's demise?
There is no way for the stadium to be substantially reconfigured. It's bad enough with the "retractable" seats which can only be retracted at a cost of £8m a pop, reportedly.
The general view is that overheads would drop but certainly not by the same amount as the 50% drop in revenue.
Naming rights are in fact the main revenue stream for the stadium, not West Ham's rent. Current revenue from naming rights now, and foreseeable future: £0. Nix, nic, nada.
cost of £8m
I'd be interested to know if there is a breakdown of this cost.
There isn't. The relevant word is "reportedly". Only the LLDC can accurately report it. They failed to do so in that meeting. And Bacon completely failed to quiz them on it. That is my point.
Apparently, when discussing Khan's continuation of the Olympic precept this year, the charming Gareth thinks, "...Londoners will be out of pocket to the tune of £23m in total. This is very unfair to all the hardworking people in the Capital, who should no longer be expected to pay this unwarranted charge once the Olympics debt has been wiped, as it now has been."
Comments
Good to learn that the Press Association have been conducting their own investigations and using FOI.
More material for the inquiry.
In the paper edition, they quote rates specialists CVC saying that the variances in the Premier League are considerable. The extremes being Bournemouth paying £86,000 and Spurs at £3.5m.
To be fair to WHam, not really down to them (the delay) at the moment. They can't pay a bill that hasn't been decided/delivered. The Valuation Office Agency need to pull their finger out and agree the split.
Maybe such a low cost base means they don’t need to do this.
The 25 days a year is a deliberate misinformation. As we proved to the satisfaction of the Information Tribunal, the contract ties the stadium up for far longer than that. They have to allow one day either side to take down and put back up the West Ham footie stuff, if another user wants to rent. In addition, the Event Calendar has to reserve not just a given Saturday but any other days which Sky may move a game to at short notice. They also have been allowed to train on it. I hope it is clear that therefore they rent it for far more than the 25 days when football is played. They have office space which is in permanent use too.
Technically they they are not liable for business rates as every other footie club is ( we will have to find out if Man. City pay) but our point has always been, thatbif an experienced football commercial manager had been deployed to negotiate the contract, instead of a load of stuffed suits from PwC, he would have spotted that give away. And the hospitality, and the stewarding and the ticketing, and police costs. And West Ham would have been happy to concede all that and pay at least double the rent. That has always been our central argument, and it is pretty straightforward once you cut through Gullivan's crap and the LLDC's pathetic cover up of their own incompetence.
@cafc999 the club shop premises are included in the rent, I am almost certain. The staff, that is one I haven't thought of, and must do so. We know that the staff at the ticket office are paid for by the stadium operator. West Ham' s only cost of Sales are printing the bloody tickets and delivering them. Seriously.
The fact that it wasn't even clear who would be liable for rates, and the contract doesn't give power to charge WH a portion of the rates that fall on the stadium, is yet more evidence of the sheer incompetence of those who signed off this deal.
I was alerted by a complete stranger, via the FOI website, to a video recording of the GLA Budget Monitoring sub-committee on Wednesday.
The text below the video sounded encouraging : The Budget and Performance Sub Committee will discuss the financial performance of the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) in 2017-18, amid concerns over its £35.3 million budget management. The discussion will include the un-profitable London stadium, the cultural and education district, affordable housing and long-term financial sustainability.
So I was somewhat aghast to see how Mr Bacon as Chair seemed mainly concerned with attacking the supposed delay in the completion of the Inquiry. (You can it that soon after the start of the video) . At first I took it at face value but when later on he allowed the LLDC to get away without any grilling on the current P&L , I started to smell a rat (from 31 mins onwards Goldstone admits they are loss-making, without giving any figures, then blithely informs us that they have suspended search for a new naming rights sponsor! And that they are "looking at" more cost effective ways of removing the seating - (on 26 minutes)). As it becomes clearer that Bacon wants to present the Inquiry as a waste of taxpayers money (at a fixed cost of 150k) he asks the LLDC if they think we are getting value for money. Which, as we have written, is a bit like asking Tony Blair if he thinks Chilcott is going to be value for money.
Mr Bacon is a Tory, and we now start to suspect that he is a Johnson fan-boy. @Airman Brown has already said that he believes he is, and one of ours has also uncovered a paid role that Johnson conferred on Bacon.
Does anybody else have any helpful info on Mr Bacon?
Thanks in advance!
I believe the "rent" would be halved but, against that, the costs for stewarding, policing, ticketing etc would also decrease. Would the stadium be reconfigured every year if the crowds dropped below 25000? This could be a huge saving!
I always assumed the losses would be greater in the event of relegation but is there a possibility the tax payer may actually profit from West Ham's demise?
I am sure there is lots of "stuff", but being a bit overloaded and this coming out of the blue I was just hoping to find someone who knows about any specific links between him and Johnson.
We already know about this one, his appointment by Johnson as Chairman of Fire and Emergency Planning Authority.
There is no way for the stadium to be substantially reconfigured. It's bad enough with the "retractable" seats which can only be retracted at a cost of £8m a pop, reportedly.
The general view is that overheads would drop but certainly not by the same amount as the 50% drop in revenue.
Naming rights are in fact the main revenue stream for the stadium, not West Ham's rent. Current revenue from naming rights now, and foreseeable future: £0. Nix, nic, nada.
Try the previous year's entries for a little more info on the delightful Bacon family.
http://www.bexley-is-bonkers.co.uk/politics/cllrs_by_name/2014/names.php
http://www.bexley-is-bonkers.co.uk/politics/cllrs_by_name/2015/names.php
I'd be interested to know if there is a breakdown of this cost.
https://conservativehome.com/localgovernment/2017/02/gareth-bacon-the-cost-of-khan-londoners-are-still-paying-for-a-needless-olympics-tax.html
It's a shame he doesn't take the same rigourous approach to other taxpayers money being spent providing WHU with, well, whatever they asked for.
Even a cursory glace indicates he is very much in Boris's camp and appears to have a vehement dislike of anything associated with Khan.