winstoncigar

Sounds like the Fat Lady is singing at Rye House

I suspect the gym and gymnastics club generate more income for the leaseholders than speedway would and can’t see how they could all work together especially as the leaseholders would appear to have an active dislike for ‘dirty’ speedway. There’s a reason why Uncle Len didn’t sell to the present tenants.

It’s unlikely that the site owners want speedway back. They’ve got tenants there that certainly wouldn’t. it’s all a bit academic, at the end of the day the cost to revive speedway at Rye House would be so huge it will take a Euro Millions big jackpot winner being a Rockets fan to to make it happen.

Just the section of the report relevant to speedway, my underlining! ‘The application site did house a Speedway Track and associated stands. The Speedway track has subsequently been removed from the site, with works starting to remove this in approximately the year 2020. The application proposes the replacement of this speedway track with a football pitch. A new football changing and clubhouse is proposed, alongside a dance studio, hospitality building, gymnastics building and gyms. With regards to policy CFLR1, the proposal does not result in the loss or reduction of open space, indoor or outdoor sport and recreation facilities. Whilst the Speedway track is lost, this is replaced by other outdoor and indoor sports and recreation facilities of a greater scale. As such, it is the officer’s view that there would likely be an increase in the level of sport and recreation facilities on site. It is the case that the Council would have had no control to require the speedway track to be re-provided and opened to the public. The Council would have no planning policy ground to insist that the specified sport and recreation facilities on site remain for Speedway Racing. The proposal is for a number of alternative new indoor and outdoor sport and recreation facilities on the site, providing replacement facilities on site, albeit for a variety of different sports. Sports England have been consulted on the proposal and raise no objection. Whilst the proposal does result in the loss of the speedway track, it provides new facilities for indoor and outdoor sport. As such the proposal is not considered to fall contrary to policy CFLR1 with regards to sports facilities.’

the officers report that accompanied the decision notice isn’t encouraging at all

Sorry to say that its not viable and it would appear that promises of tv money that would have just about made it viable never materialised. The infrastructure needed so much investment that it would have failed whoever was running it, I was told that a nessessary electricity upgrade alone was likely to cost in excess of £200k. One big question is where did the tv money go and why? Why, two and a half years after incorporation, are there no full accounts filed for British Speedway Promotors Ltd? What happened to the money the now defunct BSPA had? I applaud your efforts though I can't help wishing someone would put as much effort into uncovering the truth while theres just about time to save any Speedway in the UK

had a very interesting chat this morning with someone who appeared to have a pretty good idea of the events that led up to the closure at Rye House. As I suspected, the root cause of the failure lies with the BSPA

Whatever happened to all those engines? Does anybody know where all the money went?

I can't see how. I guess if there's enough objections they might not be allowed to put football pitches there but that wont bring Speedway back. It might be that the landowners could force them to reinstate the track but I'd have thought that was between the freeholder and the leaseholder, nothing to do with the council.

https://publicaccess.eastherts.gov.uk/online-applications/files/F8173B61387A640C1A82AB8AA65D8EAE/pdf/3_20_2563_FUL-PLANNING_STATEMENT-1603853.pdf

He bought the company that owned the lease, liquidators were never involved.

So many unanswered questions. For a start: Who fouled up the TV deal that led to the enormous drop in the revenue that was originally used to entice a move to the top flight? Who forced through a change of race nights before the anouncement of the reduced TV money? Why weren't riders who were owed money after racing stopped paid out of the bond that all promoters were required to lodge with the BSPA and was it a coincidence that the BSPA formed itself into a limited liability company while riders were still chasing wages? Why did the BSPA appear to put so many hurdles in the way of the queue of promoters that were allegedly lining up to take over from BMR? Did the BSPA, SCB or any other governing body of the sport ever contact the new leaseholder of the stadium to see if there was a way to keep the track open? Maybe the Star could look at that rather than just giving us fans a tantalising glimpse of a fantasy that won't happen.

edited

I too can't help thinking the time and effort being spent trying to give the kiss of life to a corpse would be better used elsewhere. Start by finding out exactly what happened to Rye House and Lakeside and try and make damn sure the same thing doesn't happen to other clubs. In the meantime I'll keep doing the lottery but it's going to be a while before there'll be another jackpot big enough to save the Rockets.

I'm not sure who 'Steve' is, the article in the Star only referred to 'a spokesman' so I can't say whether I like him or not. If he thinks he can save Rye House Speedway without millions then he's deluded whoever he is and there's no kindness in giving fans false hope. Whatever the planning officers say will be after consultation primarily with the new lease holder but does anyone think in this day and age they'll favour motorsport events and facilities over ones that tick all the 'Green' boxes ? As for the Star, rather than just printing that guff, they'd be better off doing a proper investigation into what went wrong at Rye to try and stop it happening elsewhere, there are still some big questions to be answered. I've got my Euro Millions ticket though so there's still a chance Rye House can be saved!