A Material Consideration

As each day goes by and more information is released by various outlets and duly gathered by supporters, it is now becoming increasingly clear — if it wasn?t already — that all was not as it seemed.

Even down Old Hall Street, editors are giving the nod to headlines such as ?The True Cost? and allowing statements that seemingly challenge the validity of a mandate to relocate to Kirkby — ?obtained under false pretences,? — to grace their publications. Stirring stuff from the local rags. Is this a significant shift? Do the hacks know something we don?t? Is the Everton board?s continuing silence on this biggest of all issues (depending of course on your stance over Kirkby) good or bad news? Who knows? At least on that last question, the vast majority of Evertonians have some common ground.

Nevertheless, the debate — or in-fighting — between Evertonians rages on. So, while the cries of ?I told you so? are being met with shouts of ?yeah, but £78m is still cheap,? I want to attempt to take a different angle on this issue — the role Everton Football Club now finds itself in.

In March of 2007, a full four months before the ballot, work began in earnest on the huge amount of documents that make up the Tesco planning application. For such an application, whose significant non-compliance with planning policy is readily excepted by Tesco themselves, to be successfully accepted, it has to have enough weight or material considerations in order to attempt to balance out the contradiction to policy.

We have all been made aware of the ?positive? material considerations being used by Tesco as counter balance: regeneration, a revived town centre, 700 new jobs, road, parking and public transport improvements etc, etc. What I suspect the vast majority of Evertonians are not aware of are the ?negative? material considerations being used to add weight to the Tesco planning application. This, to me at least, unsurprisingly, is where Everton Football Club really comes in to the equation. In fact I should re-phrase — you will be aware of them due to the fact that almost all of them were first revealed by Keith Wyness, both before and during the ballot process. Here a just a sample;

Within the planning application Tesco state that:

• Goodison Park cannot be redeveloped beyond a 37K capacity = material consideration in favour of the Tesco planning application.
• If an alternative viable site for a stadium could be found then the need for the massive retail element in Kirkby could not be justified; there are no alternative sites for a stadium for Everton FC = material consideration in favour of the Tesco planning application.
• Everton FC have a desperate financial need to leave Goodison Park. The club has explored all of the options available in order to fund a new stadium. Whilst the club has stabilised its position in the last few years there has been a legacy of debt which is long term in nature and impacts on present and future borrowing possibilities = material consideration in favour of the Tesco planning application.
• The club cannot and are unlikely to be in a position in the future to fund the costs of the stadium = material consideration in favour of the Tesco planning application.
• The current directors have no intention of selling any of their interests in the Club = material consideration in favour of the Tesco planning application.
• Without ?a critical mass? of retail development (around 85,000 sq m) there can be no stadium, without a stadium there can be no retail development, without the retail development there can be no regeneration of Kirkby = material consideration in favour of the Tesco planning application.

There are more, lots more, and most of a similar ilk. All in black and white and available for all to read on the Knowsley Council website or in hard copy.

This, at the behest of a handful of middle aged millionaires is the role Everton Football Club finds itself in and whatever your stance on Kirkby might be; be you for, against or not arsed, I?d suggest you will have difficulty in denying the fact that a once proud institution has been purposefully presented as a wreck of a club, reduced to becoming a material consideration in favour of a Tesco Stores Limited planning application.

To rub a little more salt in, the figures of the development value and cost to Tesco given in the revised Financial Statement (page 7) (dated April 10th 2008) simply beggar belief and are even more incredible when you consider and compare the planned Tesco Extra that alone has a projected yearly turnover figure (2012) of £145m against the ?extra £10m in revenue? predicted by Keith Wyness last summer;

Value:

• Investment Value £280m
• Grant circa £10m
• Total circa £290m

Cost:

• Construction and other development costs circa £211m
• Profit circa £27m
• Cross subsidy from enabling development circa £52m
• Total £290m

Against this £290m cost to the £multi-Billion monster that is Tesco, the current cost to the financial wreck that is Everton Football Club, as it stands is £78m.

?The deal of the century??

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