That Old Chestnut - Do We Move Or Do We Stay

[stv]

Can I ask if there is any large project like building a new stadium, hospital , school, football ground in Scotland that has ever came in or under budget in the last 40 years.

Feasibility studys usual find in favour of the general veiws of who is paying for it in the first place and can be very subjective.

[Goggles & Flippers]

11 hours ago, Speedie85 said:

I think the specificity is the strength of the policy, not a weakness. Before adoption, there was no clarity on what would trigger a vote; deliberately naming the criteria is a positive step forward. Indeed this was one of seven key items which the Society consulted all adult members on last summer; including changes to membership tiers and benefits, introduction of Global memberships, updates to rules of association, introduction of a member's code of conduct and development of a funding policy.

On discretion; I read that highlighted paragraph the other way round. It's discretion to call a vote by exception, not a standing obligation to weigh every significant decision against it. For me the purpose was to leave the door open for something genuinely outside the criteria but of equivalent weight; not to function as a catch-all that reopens the specific list every time. If it worked the way you're suggesting, the named criteria would barely matter, since almost anything sizeable could be routed through discretion instead.

On the sale versus development point. I reckon that's fair, albeit I wouldn't go as far as absurd. I note the policy is due for review next summer. So if there a view that capital investment in major facilities should sit alongside disposal as a trigger, then that's the kind of change worth putting forward.

And on financing; I'd suggest that it's a real positive of where the club has got to over the last couple of years: that there's finance available to progress projects like this without the need to take on debt.

I don't disagree that specificity was an improvement it was needed from the outset of the WS in the 2010's. Before the policy there was uncertainty about what would trigger a vote, and having defined criteria is obviously better than having none. My point isn't that the specificity is a weakness. It's that we shouldn't confuse having specific triggers with those triggers being exhaustive in every circumstance.

The discretion clause is where I think we differ. I don't read it as creating an obligation to put every significant decision to a vote either. I read it as giving the Board a mechanism to deal with significant decisions that don't neatly fall within the specified criteria but which could nevertheless have a material impact on the club's finances, structure, governance or identity.

And I think a multi-million-pound investment in a major club facility is precisely the sort of situation where at least asking that question would be reasonable. But this investment isn't a standard, buy some land, level and irrigate four football pitches and build a facility. It's build a facility with no clarity on the land/rent/arrangement etc. The £8m or so rumoured for Kilmarnock's new ground is very much an asset and why Bowie has retained ownership of the site. We are looking at funding at least £3m for phase one and safe to say there's a phase two in the works. If that's a further £2m then we're £5m into Dalziel Park and limited asset value. It's not too much to ask for justification.

I also think there is something missing from looking at the policy purely through the literal wording of the bullet points. Yes, it doesn't specifically say “funding” or “capital investment”. But neither does it make much sense to interpret the document without considering the spirit in which it was produced and the renewed relationship it was intended to establish between the Society and the club and extolled in every correspondence for the past two years.

The whole point of the exercise was to provide clarity around what fan ownership actually means when the club is faced with major strategic decisions. If we reduce that to does the exact transaction appear verbatim in one of the bullets?, we risk defeating some of the purpose of having the policy in the first place.

The Society is now the majority shareholder and therefore the owner. The club board is effectively operating on behalf of those owners. That doesn't mean the Society should be running the club or approving day-to-day expenditure. Far from it. But it does mean there should be a meaningful distinction between operational autonomy and major strategic decisions.

On the sale/development distinction, I accept that the wording currently says disposal rather than investment. But that's also why I think it's fair to question the logic of it rather than simply point to “that's what it says”. The policy identifies the training ground as a major facility. Surely the financial and strategic significance of committing several million pounds to developing that facility doesn't suddenly become irrelevant because we're spending money on it rather than receiving money from selling it.

I also don't think changing the policy next summer really answers the question of whether the existing discretion could have been used in this case. If the Board genuinely considered the project and concluded that it didn't warrant a membership vote, I'd be interested in knowing that. What I struggle with is the suggestion that because “training ground investment” isn't one of the words in the list, the discussion ends there.

And just on the financing point, I agree entirely that having the cash available rather than needing to borrow is a positive. But having the money available doesn't make the decision any less significant to the owners. I think your last sentence slightly caricatures the argument I'm making. I'm not saying let's take out a £30 to 40m mortgage and hope for the best. I'm saying that financing isn't automatically synonymous with bad debt. I'm also advocating that due to duplication a lot of what is proposed at Dalziel Park could be rolled into a new stadium development along with the £3-5m we're about to commit to.

We already have examples of very favourable financing arrangements. The Scottish Government loan is one, and the loan from the Well Society to the club is another. There have also been occasions where money was provided to the club and ultimately written off rather than simply being added to the debt.

So I don't think any need to borrow money is, in itself, an argument against doing something. The terms, cost, repayment profile, security, affordability and downside risk are what matter.

If a stadium project required borrowing on terms that left the club dangerously exposed, I'd be opposed to it. If, on the other hand, there was a sensible financing structure, a sustainable repayment plan and sufficient headroom to withstand a few lean years, I'd at least want that option properly assessed and shared ... you know like how it's meant to be.

That's why I'm reluctant to start from the assumption that the only acceptable way to build it is to have the entire cost sitting in the bank. We should be looking at what is financially prudent and sustainable, rather than treating debt itself as the red line.

If we have reached a position where the club can contemplate spending several million pounds of its accumulated resources on major infrastructure without borrowing, that's exactly the sort of major strategic decision where I'd expect fan ownership to mean something.

[cambo97]

1 hour ago, stv said:

Can I ask if there is any large project like building a new stadium, hospital , school, football ground in Scotland that has ever came in or under budget in the last 40 years.

Feasibility studys usual find in favour of the general veiws of who is paying for it in the first place and can be very subjective.

Yes unless its a government project. Before I left Scotland I had only two project go over budget (both involved existing properties which were far worse than thought), usually it due to client change during construction (Politicians are by far the worst). I'm not 100% sure but ptretty sure Saint Mirren, Parkhead and McDiarmid Park were all in budget.

[FirParkCornerExile]

17 hours ago, 0Neils40yarder said:

Because its the cheap option that wouldn't saddle us with a load of debt 🤷‍♂️

And a Stadium like St Mirrens would severely restrict our capacity for income. We have a capacity for 4800 away fans every game, St Mirren have capacity for 1400  that's why their average crowds were so far behind us last season (8620 v 6835) we had room for more home fans and alot of away fans. 

If we were to build a new stadium it cannot be with a capacity any less than 12,000.

[0Neils40yarder]

33 minutes ago, FirParkCornerExile said:

And a Stadium like St Mirrens would severely restrict our capacity for income. We have a capacity for 4800 away fans every game, St Mirren have capacity for 1400  that's why their average crowds were so far behind us last season (8620 v 6835) we had room for more home fans and alot of away fans. 

If we were to build a new stadium it cannot be with a capacity any less than 12,000.

I dont think anyone would advocate for a smaller stadium than we currently have...I was more meaning the general design of the Paisley effort 

[FirParkCornerExile]

2 minutes ago, 0Neils40yarder said:

I dont think anyone would advocate for a smaller stadium than we currently have...I was more meaning the general design of the Paisley effort 

Fair enough. I hate Stadiums like St Mirrens and St Johnstones. How much more expensive would it have been to fill in the corners. Even Livingstons 10,000 seater is better than those two.