I don’t mind who owns Meadow Lane, as long as it’s our home ground. I trust the club to make the best decision. The current lease gives us some security.

Owning our assets would be great, but it depends on the costs involved. Having our own training ground could lead to extra maintenance expenses. Coexisting might be more beneficial. As long as we have a home at Meadow Lane and a good standard training ground, I’m content.

On 06/12/2023 at 23:12, Sirrels County said:

If the land is designated solely for sports use, then housing developers might not be interested in purchasing Meadow Lane unless the Council makes a notable reversal. I suspect that most of the land would be challenging to build on due to the high risk of flooding. While I’m not opposed to the idea of owning the land, I believe it will become a necessity once we regain our status as a Championship team.

Covenants can easily be circumnavigated - I live near a ground  where the Local Council waived a covenant on a park to allow a club to redevelop it to pay for a stadium upgrade.  In that situation someone who holds the original covenant has to take the process through court to get the covenant upheld.  In or case the club didn't have the money to do the development, but the planning permission is still in place 20 odd years later (they keep updating it).  So a canny developer would get around the covenant. 

As I understand it, the council own the land and Haydn Green Trust have a 150 year lease who then sublet to the club. the club owning the infrastructure (stands etc) 
It was set up this way to ensure the club has a home "forever". The rent is like £20k a year (depending on which league we are in) so nothing that will significantly improve the clubs revenue if they did own it. 

Personally I would prefer it to stay this way, we have fantastic owners now but removing the land as an asset deters greedy/selfish owners selling the land to make a £. 

Securing a permanent training ground is far more important. 

Now that I understand the current agreement better, I think it’s fine because it allows us to grow. I wonder what would happen if Notts tried to buy land around the ground for further work. I hope Meadow Lane remains a traditional four-stand stadium. If we move up the leagues and attendance increases, we might need some work done.

In an ideal World I would love our Club to own the land that our Stadium stands on, however the main focus of Notts owners should be to get Notts into the championship, and to use any spare capital to acquire players that will get us there. We have a Stadium large enough for the Championship. Once we are a established Championship club, then look to buy the land, only if the owners feel it's worthwhile to do so.

Does this make anyone think differently?

I don't see it happening but the council is far from to be trusted with regards to ground rent.

Looks like the Council wants to increase the rent for the City ground I'm sure there may well be a compromise agreed, but Forest may decide to move to a different site. Could have repercussions for Notts. We'll have to see what happens.

So the Nottingham CC is offering to sell the Land that the City Ground stands on to Forest for £10 million.

Notts should look into buying the freehold for the land that Meadow stands on from NCC if given the opportunity. Surely the land wouldn't cost so much anyway. 

Notts don't want to have to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in lease charges,  if they can own the land, even if they take out a loan to finance the buy.

On 02/03/2024 at 16:54, Chris said:

Does this make anyone think differently?

I don't see it happening but the council is far from to be trusted with regards to ground rent.

Forest are in a different situation to Notts, in that their lease only has about 40 years left to run, whereas the current arrangement at Meadow Lane still has well over 100 years to go. It's difficult for Forest to justify long-term redevelopment of the City Ground when ultimately it could potentially be short- to medium-term for them.

The current set up on Meadow Lane saved the club in 2019, when Haydn Green's family effectively forced Hardy out. I trust the Reedtz brothers, but not as much as I trust the Green family. I hope they have a stake in the ground for many years to come.