MattK

As you say, it is estimated that up to 10,000 are infected but are not displaying symptoms (the incubation period is 5 days) or experience mild symptoms. The problem is these people are still contagious and are infecting others as they go about their daily lives. There is a lot of focus on the death rate, however it is a bit more complex than that. For example, figures from China suggest that 20% of those who contract the virus require hospital treatment. Reports from Italy suggest their healthcare system in the north is at breaking point with not enough isolation rooms in hospitals to avoid infection of other patients and healthcare workers and shortages of ventilation machines and respirators. Another slightly ironic issue in Italy is that even before the outbreak they had a shortage of around 3,000 intensive care professionals. Now where have we heard about healthcare worker shortages before?

Freudian slip? Or should that be Fraudian slip? I'll get my coat.

Can speedway afford to put any of their swindling supporter base at risk though?

I think you may be on the money here. Or at least told the stadium was "moving" without being told precisely where to or how far from its current position.

But that's not the place it was supposed to be in - as in the original plans, for which the houses were built, the stadium was supposed to move.

Who told you that? The local MP? There's a well know saying, how do you know when a politician is lying ?You can see their lips move. As I said, the council should have been smarter and put better checks in place, but even the limitation of no more than 200 houses being populated before contracts were signed was easily side stepped. However, SBC are not 100% at fault. Gaming International are ultimately at fault as they had no intention of ever building the new stadium. I don't know, how much did the council spend on feasibility studies, planning etc.? Development companies don't have £80m sat in the bank ready to invest. Once they get planning permission they go out to their investors and raise the capital requires to complete a project. If you look on Seven Capital's web site you will see they have a proven track record in retail, commercial and leisure developments. As I said, the council deserve criticism for many things, but I don't know how anyone can point the finger at them for the lack of progress. Good Lord no.

Ultimately, the developers are culpable. It's their land and their development, their plan etc. They have chosen to build the houses first, endlessly tinker with the stadium plans and so on. The council should have put better checks in place to prevent the houses going up and no work on the stadium. However, if you want a more comprehensive answer, the land around the stadium was designated as commercial use in the North Swindon Plan and bought by Motorola. Of course, Motorola not only didn't develop the land, but moved out of Swindon altogether. In reality, the council shouldn't have granted permission for houses on the land around the stadium, but money talks and local councils are under huge pressure from central government to build housing, so it was probably inevitable.

How is the North Star Snoasis "in the hands" of SBC? It is a private development being built and funded with private money. Or not as the case may be. I'm all in favour of holding the council to account where appropriate, but I'm not sure what more they can do to move this forwards.

The Greyhound Board of Great Britain release their own report stating 1,000 dogs died in a single year, including 242 put down trackside and 324 which were put down because they could not be rehomed. This is only dogs which "retire" it doesn't include those which were being trained but were not considered suitable. A report compiled for the Irish Greyhound Board concluded that on average 5,987 dogs were culled (slide 26) each year as they "failed to produce qualifying times" (2,673); "failure to produce desired entry level times" (1,989) and an "unacceptable decline in performance" (1,326). Why would the greyhound governing bodies spread such lies about their own sports?

You don't need to read "the papers". The Greyhound Board of Great Britain release their own report stating 1,000 dogs died in a single year, including 242 put down trackside and 324 which were put down because they could not be rehomed. This is only dogs which "retire" it doesn't include those which were being trained but were not considered suitable. A report compiled for the Irish Greyhound Board concluded that on average 5.987 dogs were culled (slide 26) each year as they "failed to produce qualifying times" (2,673); "failure to produce desired entry level times" (1,989) and an "unacceptable decline in performance" (1,326).

Thank you for highlighting this despicable behaviour. I had never heard of these actions until you pointed them out. Here is some more reading for those who don't want to "swalow [sic] what the antis spout". Greyhound killer to face tougher sentence 30 injured greyhounds put down at dog track Greyhound breeder offers slow dogs to be killed for research

It depends what the clauses are. All along the council have been adamant that no houses can be built on the land. Now they have opened the door the houses on the car park I see no reason why the current owners would sell. At very least they'll want to see what stipulations are required for the stadium to be considered "operable" in order for planning permission to be granted. It also massive complicates a CPO as the council have massively increased the value of the car park simply by weakening their opposition towards housing.

What's to stop the current owners complying with the above now the council have opened the door to homes being built on part of the stadium land?

Why would the current owners sell if there was a quick £10m to be made flipping the car park into houses?

That figure sounds like the tip of the iceberg Up to 6,000 greyhounds are being killed each year because they are not fast enough.

It does seem strange that anyone would invest £20m into a decrepit stadium which plays host to two sports in terminal decline.

Isn't Nick Budimir primarily involved in greyhound racing? It would seem a strange approach to buy a stadium and then drop the one thing he has a background in.

Let teams build to whatever average they like, then for each meeting the difference forms a handicap for the team with the higher average. For example, Swindon builds to 45 and Sheffield builds to 40. Therefore Swindon start on -5 when they ride against Sheffield at Sheffield and -10 (to account for the home advantage) at Swindon.

Is SWC dead and SoN now the annual event?

Who says it isn't broken though? Maybe the organisers have looked at some of the lacklustre attendances and figure this is one way things can be freshened up a bit?

I don't mind the new scoring system. As said, it is in line with other motorsports. You don't get more points for winning an F1 GP by a minute rather than a fraction of a second. As for only the top six qualifying and five wildcards, I like this a lot as it gives the organisers much more flexibility. Hopefully they use this to inject some fresh faces, rather than simply promote the seventh and eighth placed riders though. Personally, I don't think any GP rider who finishes outside the top eight/six should get a wildcard unless they've missed meeting through injury.

You'd think, wouldn't you? The problem is that speedway's actually quite a hard sell. Four blokes going round in circles with most races won from the gate. And it costs £18. Not really an inciting proposition on the face of it. Trying to attract back lost fans makes a lot of sense.

You've identified one of the fundamental problems with British speedway - it doesn't understand who its target market is. Speedway tries to target children by doing into schools, having face painting and bouncing castles, but when you actually go to a meeting the average age is over 55 and the presentation is like something from the 70s. Kids don't want to listen to AC/DC and fill out paper programmes with a pen, they want Stormzy, Fortnite and an app to keep score with. The solution is in fact quite simply. If the majority of your customers are over 55, then market speedway at... wait for it... yep... over 55s! Its not rocket science people. You can also align the sport with sponsors who want to target that demographic adding some much needed credibility. The other benefit of course is that over 55s are likely to have far more disposable income than youngsters.

Of course it's cobblers, but that's marketing in a nutshell. Doesn't make it wrong though.

What you will note is, although those things have regained popularity, it isn't branded or marketed in the same way as when it was popular previously. Gin has regained popularity by targeting young drinkers, selling itself as a premium drink and coupled with exotic mixers. This is the problem with speedway. The world has moved on but the sport hasn't. Promoters idea of marketing hasn't changed since the 70s and still involves going into schools and down the local village fete. The other problem speedway faces is that is it a premium price for a spit and sawdust product. That is a hard sell in anyone's book. I think too many promoters are sitting around thinking "speedway will be next" - however, they've been doing that for the last twenty years.