Ben wrote:in all seriousness you probably could have a cinema, bars, hotels and all sorts around the current concourse and top tier then build inside with the money from the businesses setting up there
I think it's an excellent idea and pleases just about everyone under the circumstances. It would be utilising space cleverley much the same way they salvaged the Millenium Dome white elephant fiasco by creating a permanent space for events in the middle of it which are now surrounded by the likes of bars, restaurants etc. They'd coin it in too eventually by maximising the dead space that exists now. Would they ever think of it though? Very much doubt it.
Ben wrote:in all seriousness you probably could have a cinema, bars, hotels and all sorts around the current concourse and top tier then build inside with the money from the businesses setting up there
But who would want to walk another 20 minutes to the stadium when you already have all that on tap at Westfield?
I just want the ****ing stands closer to the pitch. How they ultimately went about it I'm not fussed as long as it didn't impact on our enjoyment of the game. And if they did manage to get the stands closer as someone suggested, it would make it a damn sight better than it is now.
Colours never run wrote:I just want the ****ing stands closer to the pitch. How they ultimately went about it I'm not fussed as long as it didn't impact on our enjoyment of the game. And if they did manage to get the stands closer as someone suggested, it would make it a damn sight better than it is now.
I am pleased to report the construction schedule is on track and in two months’ time the installation of the cutting-edge roof — the largest cantilevered roof in the world — begins. It is a truly world-class solution that covers every seat and we want to ensure that standard is matched with our final designs for the innovative retractable seating
Olympics › Paralympic News
Karren Brady: Give Olympic stadium to West Ham and let us build on Coe's promises
Exclusive: West Ham vice-chairman Karren Brady explains how her club's proposal for the Olympic Stadium would create a legacy
KARREN BRADY
Wednesday 25 July 2012 10:54
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The Evening Standard
Karren Brady
Karren Brady
Dear Londoners,
In just two days’ time our fantastic city will embark on what I am certain will be the most successful Olympic and Paralympic Games to date.
The Games will see a record 205 countries and 14,700 athletes participating in 46 Olympic and Paralympic sports across 34 venues. 2012 will also see the start of the tangible realisation of the promises made by Lord Coe on behalf of us all in Singapore in 2005 and what they mean for future generations.
As I watch Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony on Friday, I’ll be proud to be British and, as a born-and-bred Londoner, I’ll be proud of our city. But most of all, I’ll be proud for east London, because I know what 2012 and its legacy means for this area and the wonderful, eclectic people I have come to know and feel so passionate about.
Our joint-chairmen, David Sullivan and David Gold, both originated from the area and often used to tell me of the pull of the East End and its people. I could not ever fully comprehend just how special the area was until they achieved their lifelong ambition of running West Ham United — their boyhood club — and put me at the helm in January 2010.
Since then it is no secret that I have spent two and a half years dedicated to a project that could see West Ham United occupy the Olympic Stadium and make it our home post-Games. As has been well documented, the first process collapsed under the threat of legal challenge but our beliefs remain unchanged.
We have never lost sight of our vision to play our part, along with the Stadium’s major stakeholders, to ensuring that the Stadium grows into a multi-use destination that serves east London and of which the nation can be proud.
For my board and I, shaping legacy success has been the key factor in continuing to pursue our interest despite the many twists and turns. Nobody is better placed to deliver the legacy for London than West Ham United — we have been delivering legacies for London since our formation as Thames Ironworks FC back in 1895. Indeed, this is an intrinsic part of our brand identity — ‘Moore than a Football Club — since 1895 rooted in London, working with and for the community’.
Our proposal would ensure a vibrant, busy Stadium immediately upon the opening of the venue in 2014. We would seek to act as the catalyst to galvanise the Olympic Park.
We want to embrace our supporters and the wider community of east London from the outset and really take them with us. We are proud that of the 850,000 West Ham United supporters regularly communicating with us, more than 500,000 of them are from east London and the surrounding area. This is our community and it is a community we work hard to serve.
The award-winning West Ham United Community Sports Trust has been delivering services in east London and Essex since the early 1990s — specifically targeting some of the most deprived boroughs in the country. Our locally mentored coaches already teach 17 of the 26 Olympic sports. A move to the Olympic Stadium would enable us to expand on the established links and award-winning programmes already in place at an exponential rate.
It is anticipated that during the Games more than one million people will visit the Olympic Stadium. We estimate that we would bring well over one million people A YEAR to the Park. Prosperity would be provided through the offer of a near 100-year sustainable partnership that would ensure a return on the public investment that has ALREADY been committed.
West Ham United already have an established workforce from the local boroughs but we would look to substantially add to this, offering in the region of 700 additional full- and part-time positions. In addition to what we bring to Stratford, our proposal, if implemented will deliver the much needed regeneration of Upton Park, in line with the needs of its existing community.
As a businesswoman the commercial benefits of our proposed addition to the Olympic Park do not escape me. Bringing Premier League football to the Park would offer untold exposure to all of us. The Premier League is watched in more than 650million homes in 212 territories by a TV audience of 4.7billion people, meaning West Ham United would bring continued global interest to the Park and surrounding area. Our vision is not solely held by us. We have had plenty of support along the way as we look to stand up for the promises made for London back in 2005. Indeed, Lord Coe said when we first began our journey in 2010 that our bid “lives with the commitment we made back in Singapore”.
We remain well supported by our friends and partners in the athletics community. Ed Warner, chairman of UK Athletics commented recently: “We have long been enthused by what a club of West Ham’s stature and local heritage can bring to this multi-purpose venue, and in particular by your own team’s plans to be part of a vibrant future for the Stadium and the Olympic Park. This is why we endorse your bid.”
We have also received backing from community leaders, business leaders, representatives of the arts community and key figures from within football. I am excited at the prospect of being able to, at last, communicate the full extent of our proposals to our patient and loyal supporters.
What I am able to say, is that if we were to be fortunate enough to be granted the chance to do so, West Ham United would provide a world-class stadium that would be their home, showcasing first-class facilities and offering affordable, accessible, elite football as well as huge opportunities for growth both on and off the pitch. Put simply, we believe it is the best move for our fans and the best chance for us to grow as a club.
But our vision for the Stadium has always focused beyond what it can do for us and more on what we can do for it. Friday’s spectacular event will mark the start of what promises to be a momentous event that the whole world will be watching. But the showcase must not stop there. We know that using the Stadium as our home would bring with it huge responsibility but we would take on with pride the mantle of what that means in terms of giving something back to our community and playing our part in delivering the promises made in 2005.
I hope Londoners will wish to get behind us when it is time to pass the baton and let legacy live on but, for now, enjoy playing your part in this spectacular piece of history.
Karren Brady
Takeover battle for stadium
June 2005 London is awarded the 2012 Olympic Games. Lord Coe promises the International Olympic Committee that the Stadium will have an athletics legacy.
November 2007 The Stadium design is unveiled. Organisers say it will be a home for athletics, combined with other sporting, community and educational uses after the Games.
July 2009 A report on the legacy of the Games warns that the Stadium is in danger of becoming a “white elephant” and the long-term viability of the surrounding park is in serious doubt.
March 2010 West Ham and Newham Council announce they are working on a joint bid to take over the stadium after the Games. The partnership would involve staging football and athletics as well as opening it for cultural and educational use.
August 2010 Bidding process for stadium use post-Olympics opens.
October 2010 Tottenham make a last-minute joint bid with AEG to be an anchor tenant. Spurs’ plans do not include an athletics track and UK Athletics announce their formal support for West Ham’s bid.
November 2010 Spurs and West Ham are shortlisted by the Olympic Park Legacy Company as the two final bidders.
February 2011 West Ham win the bid to move into the Stadium.
April 2011 Spurs take the first step in their legal battle to challenge the decision to give the stadium to West Ham. Leyton Orient launch a high court challenge against Newham Council for arranging a £40m loan to finance West Ham’s bid.
June 2011 Spurs and Orient’s bids for a judicial review to block West Ham’s move to the Stadium are rejected by a high court judge.
July 2011 West Ham take legal action against Spurs over allegations surrounding the validity of the bidding process.
August 2011 A report on whether the Olympic Park Legacy Company’s procedures surrounding the stadium bid finds they were not compromised. But a high court judge then overturns the earlier ruling, finding there are sufficient doubts over the legitimacy of Newham’s £40m loan to West Ham to justify a full judicial review. A new court date is set for October.
October 2011 It is revealed that the Stadium deal with West Ham and Newham council has collapsed.
January 2012 A fourth person is arrested by police investigating allegations that Spurs spied on Olympic officials during their failed bid to take over the stadium. There are also allegations Karren Brady’s phone records were unlawfully obtained by a Spurs adviser.
March 2012 A new bidding process starts. West Ham are among four bidders including Leyton Orient and a joint bid from Essex County Cricket Club and the University of East London.
May 2012 Deadline for submitting bids is extended by eight weeks.
July 2012 F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone announces plans to turn the stadium into a Formula 1 track after the Games.
The seats will go no nearer the pitch forget it, moving them further forward would impact on the views of those in the front of the upper tiers and would also need an extention to the roof, it would need taking down and starting again, the cost would be astronomical. All the points that were raised on this site regarding the stadium being unsuitable have materialised and it's too late to change now, we are where we are, when spurs reveal their stadium in a few months time this site will go into meltdown with people saying we should have stayed at Upton Park and redeveloped our home, i can take being an average side, always have been, i can take a tweek to the badge, no shelves to put a pint on or lack of wifi, what i hate is sitting in an unsuitable athletics stadium, where the owners have no respect for us.
In the near future I will stop going to the home games. The stadium is the breaking point and unless we move out (which I think is impossible) then I will jib it like so many others.
Billy Bonds said at a recent meeting that it's our club and we shouldn't let them drive us out. I hear that but when I had a private chat with him he said he'd only been the once, didn't want to go back himself and thinks the place is 'unfit for football'.
I'm saddened that all the recent talk of marching has gone sideways into discussions with the Club. There's just the one elephant in the room and it's white.
On another note, note sure if its been mentioned, but google earth has the aerial view of our groundbreaking state of the art stadium now fully up to date.
The ****ing roof is nowhere near to covering all the seats, not even close! the roof and the seats / pitch don't even look they are centralised to each other!
If you piece together all the articles and quotes they really have been talking out of their arses most of the time it’s just a matter of whether you believe it was spin and lies or whether they too were sold something that didn’t materialize.
The seats were never going to be any closer, the retractable part was just about speed of changing the configuration. that is a deal breaker for E20/LS185, the cost to move the scaffolding, once the club knew that the original vendor went bust, was there part of their thinking that it could lead to them getting the place on the cheap due to the unsubstainable losses that would be incurred by the operator? I’ve always wondered why another company wasn’t sought to finish the retractable part, perhaps it was timing and agreements in place to finish the conversion? We already know she was in a right hurry to sell UP so they could get their hands on the £38m and then pay the banks and LLDC out of it.
Someone recently told me that they had a chance meeting with Gold a few months back, in private he had told them he was disappointed with the way the stadium had ended up, I can only assume he meant the distances, seats etc. He said that it was like renting a flat and being told within a few months the bathroom and kitchen would be upgraded, you told all your friends about this great place you got and what was promised but it never materialized.
There’s a piece in that letter about working alongside the SAB, the most Untrusted part of the club was this group and it’s closeness and secrecy in its set up its lack of disclosure it’s NDA agreements before meetings and its carte blanche and arrogance towards the average supporter, it seemed and felt hand picked, the lads I knew on it who had a voice against things discussed were put down by the majority and opinions dismissed, they all just walked away as they knew they were wasting their time, and the SAB was purely a club pr stunt to look as if they were liaising with the support whilst riding roughshod over it and dictating it
For any one who wants to take the time to research a bit more, these threads in the old IS forum will show you how it was done , reported back etc
I never had access to the SAB forum on here so cannot comment on that and there were threads in the GD discussing this groups affairs and conduct as well
I would never sit down with them and have them dilute the good work being done by the groups
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No stands are going to be moved, and nobody is going to be nearer the pitch, just get used to it.
As for squaring it all off, the only way they can do that is to remove seats from the corners to make it look good.
Not gonna happen.
Its a complete cock up of epic proportions and we fell for it collectively hook line and sinker.
We fell for it with fancy computer generated graphics which it would seem were forgeries and a few vague promises.
To me thats a clear fraud.
I heard this morning that the accounts will reveal an increase in gate revenue of just 9 million a year, thats the Torso and arms of Jose Fonte.
Seriously, what was the point? Can someone who was and is in favour tell me what the actual benefit is without it descending into some cat fight?
at least that is one thing Sullivan hasn't lied about since the move, he said it's worth around £10m a year.
well worth it!
not sure how he thought £10m would propel us to the next level before the move though.
