Tottenham Hotspur Stadium - Licence To Stand

[Dicko]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

a thought occurred to me watching the game at Wembley today, the Jags were the home team and will be for one of next years London games as well, regarding a full time London franchise they have to be a front runner, they are owned by the same guy who owns Fulham, who could also do with a new stadium...

I was thinking this too, people are always saying that the Jaguars would be the team to move to London if it ever happened. Do we know if Fulham are currently looking into a new stadium?

 

[tw12yid]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

I was thinking this too, people are always saying that the Jaguars would be the team to move to London if it ever happened. Do we know if Fulham are currently looking into a new stadium?

Don't think Fulham are looking for a new ground. I believe they are planning on redeveloping the riverside stand though.

 

[jts1882]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

Fulham have some quite nice plans with an interesting river side: www.skys****ercity.com/showthread.php?t=1600687

When Khan (?) took over there was talk about the possibility of the Jaguars relocating to London. Last I saw he had denied any immediate plans but I'd be surprised if he was thinking about the possibility.

 

[greatwhitenorf]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

Khan's obligated to deny any possiblilty of a move just to keep fans coming out in Jacksonville. But it's a very small market without much corporate support and the team's fan base is dwindling. Lot of empty seats there these days.

Some talk revolved around possibly moving Stan Kroenke's St. Louis Rams to London. They're more likely to shift back to where they moved from, Los Angeles, when the new stadium project(s) there eventually gets done. But they're much better off at present than Jacksonville and St. Louis is a decent market.

Other teams that have been speculated about moving are Buffalo, Oakland and San Diego. Buffalo has a new stadium project currently being worked on and a team in that city services a big, lucrative market just over the border in Southern Ontario. They play once a season in Toronto. The west coast clubs are also being mooted as candidates for a shift to LA, but San Diego is looking at a new stadium. Huge military presence there that the NFL likes to cultvate.

So, Jacksonville it is.

 

[Baleforce]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

I think the Rams thing went away when they realised they were locked into their stadium deal for a long time with massive penalties for dropping games, thats why they have so far been over only once when they were previously announced to be playing here as the home team 3 years in a row, the deal the Jags are now in.

 

[jimmyb]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

Khan's obligated to deny any possiblilty of a move just to keep fans coming out in Jacksonville. But it's a very small market without much corporate support and the team's fan base is dwindling. Lot of empty seats there these days.

Some talk revolved around possibly moving Stan Kroenke's St. Louis Rams to London. They're more likely to shift back to where they moved from, Los Angeles, when the new stadium project(s) there eventually gets done. But they're much better off at present than Jacksonville and St. Louis is a decent market.

Other teams that have been speculated about moving are Buffalo, Oakland and San Diego. Buffalo has a new stadium project currently being worked on and a team in that city services a big, lucrative market just over the border in Southern Ontario. They play once a season in Toronto. The west coast clubs are also being mooted as candidates for a shift to LA, but San Diego is looking at a new stadium. Huge military presence there that the NFL likes to cultvate.

So, Jacksonville it is.

Thanks for that.

Great to have a properly informed opinion about the NFL!

 

[onlyme]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

Khan's obligated to deny any possiblilty of a move just to keep fans coming out in Jacksonville. But it's a very small market without much corporate support and the team's fan base is dwindling. Lot of empty seats there these days.

Some talk revolved around possibly moving Stan Kroenke's St. Louis Rams to London. They're more likely to shift back to where they moved from, Los Angeles, when the new stadium project(s) there eventually gets done. But they're much better off at present than Jacksonville and St. Louis is a decent market.

Other teams that have been speculated about moving are Buffalo, Oakland and San Diego. Buffalo has a new stadium project currently being worked on and a team in that city services a big, lucrative market just over the border in Southern Ontario. They play once a season in Toronto. The west coast clubs are also being mooted as candidates for a shift to LA, but San Diego is looking at a new stadium. Huge military presence there that the NFL likes to cultvate.

So, Jacksonville it is.

Great post, thanks for the info. I assume it is correct?

I used to be well into the NFL during the "Fridge" phase when it was on C4.

I went off it when it changed channels but I would obviously get into it again if we shared a stadium. I would imagine there are not as many Fulham fans with a similar disposition as possibly Spurs fans.

 

[onlyme]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

Fulham have some quite nice plans with an interesting river side: www.skys****ercity.com/showthread.php?t=1600687

When Khan (?) took over there was talk about the possibility of the Jaguars relocating to London. Last I saw he had denied any immediate plans but I'd be surprised if he was thinking about the possibility.

There is more chance of Battersea power station being pulled down than that view appearing on the Thames.

 

[paxtonwolf]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

Slightly o/t but is there any confirmation of the opening date for the Northumberland Park Sainsburys?

 

[jimmyb]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

There is more chance of Battersea power station being pulled down than that view appearing on the Thames.

Why?

They already have planning permission.

They have a wealthy new owner, keen to make his mark. And it's a development of the existing stand rather than a completely new stand - so the projected cost is only £15 million.

They have sufficient support to fill the extra 4K seats, provided they stay in the Premier League. And the stand will provide desperately needed corporate facilities (and income) - currently in short supply at the stadium as it is.

 

[jimmyb]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

Slightly o/t but is there any confirmation of the opening date for the Northumberland Park Sainsburys?

Some time next month. Early in November rings a bell and, for some reason, 6th November is a date I've got in my head.

Definitely some time in November, anyway!

 

[Flannerz]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

Some time next month. Early in November rings a bell and, for some reason, 6th November is a date I've got in my head.

Definitely some time in November, anyway!

November 6th is correct

 

[billyiddo]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

Interesting reading the last few pages

 

[paxtonwolf]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

November 6th is correct

Thanks to you both

 

[chicken_badge]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

November 6th is correct

Typical Tottenham, why sell new kits before the start of the season/witch outfits before Halloween/fireworks before bonfire night when you can just miss out on easy takings

 

[Jordinho]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

Tottenham's new stadium: club can cash in on development plan

• Haringey council set on regenerating deprived area
• Shops and homes to be knocked down to create fans' walkway

The full extent of public contribution to Tottenham Hotspur's planned new stadium project can be revealed for the first time, with the club positioned to benefit from controversial council plans to develop an area opposite the new ground involving the demolition of existing local businesses.

Spurs have bought substantial land in that area, now proposed for residential development, and recently moved ownership of the property offshore, raising the possibility of avoiding corporate capital gains tax when it is sold at a profit – although Spurs deny the transfer was motivated by tax avoidance.

The development, proposed by Haringey council, follows a renegotiation of Spurs' planning permission last year, when the club was released from a £16m commitment to improve transport and community infrastructure, and to build 50% affordable housing in the apartment blocks planned on the site of the current ground.

Tottenham's chairman, Daniel Levy, argued that those requirements were making it difficult to raise the £400m necessary to build the new stadium, and called for the wider development to boost land values and investor confidence in the Tottenham project. The council, determined to bring regeneration to an area which is vibrant but deprived and suffered the riot of 2011, shares the club's belief that their investment will be a major "catalyst" to improve the area, so the concessions were worth making.

A council housing tower block and rows of shops with people living above are to be knocked down to create a wide walkway for Spurs fans from a relocated White Hart Lane station straight to the new 56,000-seat stadium, with its shops, bars and food outlets; the council says on non-matchdays the walkway will be a "mini-town centre" public space.

The council "masterplan", which proposes wholesale flattening of property behind Tottenham High Road West, to be replaced by the walkway, 1,650 new flats and houses, shops, cafes, a library and promised cinema, has been met with utter dismay from business people whose premises would be knocked down.

Spurs stand to profit from the residential development because of the property they have bought in that area in recent years, including the Carbery enterprise park and some 20 shops and flats.

On 27 March, just before the council made the "masterplan" public, for consultation with local residents in April, Tottenham transferred all their property in the High Road West area to TH Property Ltd, a company registered in the Bahamas. That is the Caribbean tax haven home of Joe Lewis, the billionaire currency trader who owns a majority of Spurs via his holding company, Enic International, also registered in the Bahamas. Daniel Levy, Lewis's nephew and the Tottenham chairman, is with his family a potential beneficiary of a trust which owns 29% of Enic International in the Bahamas. Levy's salary, £2.2m in 2011-12, is paid by Enic International, which is then repaid by Spurs.

Richard Murphy, the anti-tax avoidance campaigner of Tax Research UK, said this arrangement gives clear potential for corporation tax to be avoided: "It depends on the precise arrangements, but if property here is owned by an offshore company, there is no corporation tax on the gain when the property is sold," he said.

A Spurs spokeswoman confirmed that TH Property Ltd is owned by Enic International, but said the transfer of the properties in Tottenham to a Bahamas-registered company was not to avoid paying UK tax on any profit made when the property is sold, potentially with residential development value.

"The transfer was to clear debts out of our UK companies which had bought the properties, so the club itself is not carrying the debts," she said. "That will help with the bank financing required for the new stadium. Both this and the club are UK operating organisations and UK tax will be paid on all UK transactions."

Business owners whose shops, workplaces and, for those who live above the shops their homes, have been targeted for demolition under the council's "masterplan," have accused Haringey of going too far to please Spurs, in the effort to keep the club in Tottenham and build regeneration around the new stadium. Hard-pressed local councils are increasingly keen to help Premier League clubs, which have become stand-out multimillion pound success stories in often impoverished neighbourhoods.

Abu Dhabi-owned Emirates Marketing Project's occupation of the Etihad stadium, originally built as the City of Manchester stadium for the 2002 Commonwealth Games and converted for the club afterwards, a total cost of £127m public and lottery money, is regarded by Emirates Marketing Project council as key to hopes of regenerating post-industrial east Manchester. Liverpool city council is currently threatening to use compulsory purchase orders on remaining property owners refusing to sell and make way for an expanded Anfield football ground; West Ham are benefiting from more than £150m public subsidy for their occupation of the Olympic stadium in Stratford.

In February 2012, after Levy had sought to move his club out of Tottenham by challenging West Ham for occupation of the Olympic stadium, Haringey agreed to release Spurs from the £16m commitment to local infrastructure and the 50% affordable housing requirement. The council itself and the mayor of London's office are instead to provide public money for the works, and a 22-storey tower block, Brook House, is being built to the north on Tottenham High Road, all of affordable housing.

When renegotiating with the council, Levy insisted major regeneration had to take place across Tottenham High Road, where Spurs had bought property, if staying in Haringey was to be viable.

"We have long said we could only invest in the area if we could see our commitment supported by others and that there was a real need to maximise the regeneration benefits and lift the wider area," Levy said.

The council agreed then, in February 2012, to produce an "area-wide regeneration masterplan", and that is the one now launched, proposing as its most ambitious option mass clearance of the existing homes and businesses, largely for new apartments.

In the summer, Levy secured €100m (£86m) from Real Madrid for selling Gareth Bale, and spent £93m on new players, including Roberto Soldado from Valencia and Erik Lamela from Roma (both cost £26m). Spurs argue they had to reinvest the Bale money in players to keep the team competitive while they press on with the new stadium project.

Brian Dossett, whose family-run timber and wood-machinist business has been on High Road since 1948 and employs 20 people, has joined other businesses to fight the plan. "They can't just take our factory and our land, which we have built over so many years' work, to build flats to make money; surely that is theft?" Dossett said.

Haringey council has said it has not yet discussed compensating or relocating businesses in line for demolition, because the "masterplan" is still only a proposal. The redevelopment could take 15 years to achieve, the council said, and Spurs point out that any money potentially made from it forms no part of the funding being assembled to build the new stadium itself.

That, approximately £400m to build a 56,000-seat stadium, stores and a podium around it, will be raised by selling naming rights and bank borrowing. The Spurs spokeswoman said the club are now confident enough about securing the funding to envisage putting the construction out to tender in early 2014, and have "cranes on site", beginning to build the new stadium, by the end of next year.

Spurs are emphasising huge benefits to Tottenham, and the council and local MP David Lammy hope the stadium project will prompt wider regeneration. A new primary school has been built at Brook House, and a University Technical College for pupils aged 14-18, sponsored by the club and Middlesex University, is being built above a giant new Sainsbury's supermarket, due to open next month with 250 new jobs, mostly for local people.

Spurs own the supermarket site too, having assembled it from properties bought gradually over the years. On 27 March, it too was transferred to TH Property in the Bahamas, which is leasing the site to Sainsbury's.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/oct/30/tottenham-new-stadium-local-business-demolition

 

[Jordinho]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

Tottenham's new stadium masterplan: the fury amid the regeneration

The north London club says 'we are finally seeing the start of the much-needed regeneration' in deprived Tottenham kickstarted by the stadium scheme – but not everyone is happy with its impact

Just two years after the Tottenham Hotspur chairman, Daniel Levy, finally gave up his fight to move to the Olympic Stadium site in Stratford, his club is closing in on a new 56,000-seat stadium, and apparently all he was asking for, back in White Hart Lane.

The local council, Haringey, desperately keen to keep Spurs investing £400m in a deprived area, agreed last year to reduce the club's obligations towards transport and other community improvements, originally part of planning permission for the new stadium, from £16.4m down to £0.5m. In total £41m of public money from the council and the Mayor of London's office has been promised for the area around Spurs' proposed new stadium; the authorities' sense of urgency prompted by the shock of the riots which erupted in Tottenham in the summer of 2011.

Also encouraging Levy to stay was that the standard London planning requirement for housing developments – to include 50% affordable housing – was waived for Spurs, after he argued that to make the new stadium financially viable, the club needs all the money it can make from selling 285 apartments on the site of the current ground at full market rate.

Levy also urged that wider regeneration of Tottenham was needed to encourage bank and investor confidence in the Spurs project, and earlier this year, Haringey council dramatically unveiled three sets of controversial development proposals for a large area across Tottenham High Road from the new stadium site. All three of the options are bitterly opposed by local business people who have found their premises suddenly earmarked for demolition after decades of work. Two rows of shops, with homes above, opposite the entrance to the planned new stadium, are to be demolished, as is the Love Lane housing estate, partly to make space for a wide walkway to steward fans from an improved White Hart Lane train station to the new stadium. The council says that on non-match days that walkway will function as a new mini-town centre, with cafes, restaurants and public space.

To the north of the new walkway, the council's plans envisage 1,650 new homes, retail units, employment workspaces, a promised cinema, new sports and community centre, and a library, just along from the current library, for which a row of six shops, including a doctor's surgery, are to be demolished. The Pea**** industrial estate, currently fully occupied with garages and other businesses, is to be knocked down in two of the options, and become Pea**** Mews. All the businesses on the industrial estate have been told they must move if the plans are approved, but not how they will be compensated or relocated, because, the council says, the scheme is as yet only for consultation. The council tenants on the Love Lane estate have been promised new homes in the proposed development, which has led to them approving the plans, but traders are furious.

Sam Oliveri, 60, who has built up his garage on the Pea**** industrial estate over 40 years and works with his son, Nick, in the business, said: "We have been in Tottenham all these years, we haven't planned to go anywhere else, it is a good area; we have never had any trouble. We worked hard, made sacrifices, and now the council wants to take my business. It seems they want to give me peanuts so that somebody can make a fortune building flats on it."

Several local traders said they believed the council's "masterplan" would principally enable Spurs to make money, because the club had steadily been buying property in the High Road west area when it became available, and had become the biggest landowner. Its acquisitions included the Carbery enterprise park, off White Hart Lane itself, behind the Pea**** industrial estate.

Land Registry records of property owned by Spurs under the 11 UK-registered companies it has used to buy dozens of properties on Tottenham High Road, Paxton Road and elsewhere to create space for its new stadium, revealed none owned across in the High Road west area. However, a search of the Carbery enterprise park, still registered as "land on the north side of White Hart Lane, London", revealed that it is owned by TH Property Ltd, of 303 Shirley Street, PO Box N492, Nassua, New Province, the Bahamas. It was transferred to the Bahamas-registered company on 27 March this year, by Greenbay Property, one of the UK companies Spurs have used to buy and hold property.

A Spurs spokesperson confirmed that TH Property Ltd is owned by Enic International, the company registered in the Bahamas which owns 85% of Spurs. Joe Lewis, the billionaire currency trader and Levy's uncle, lives reportedly as a UK tax exile in the Bahamas, and owns just over 70% of Enic International. The other 29.4% is owned by a trust which has Levy and his family as potential beneficiaries. Levy's salary, £2.2m in 2011-12, is paid by Enic International, which recharges Spurs.

The Bahamas-registered TH Property owns approximately 20 separate properties on the Tottenham High Road west site now earmarked by the council for major residential development.

All of the properties, including 6, 14,16 and 63 White Hart Lane which Spurs bought, and a first floor flat, 12a White Hart Lane; shops on Tottenham High Road itself, unit 1 on the Pea**** industrial estate and numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in a block of flats, Percival Court, were transferred to TH Property Ltd on 27 March. Some were transferred by Greenbay, others by another UK property company owned by Spurs, Canvax Limited.

The proposals for wholesale demolition of the property in the area, including the businesses trading there, and the development of 1,650 homes, were unveiled shortly afterwards, in April.

Owning assets in Britain via companies registered in tax havens can be a means of avoiding corporate capital gains tax when they are sold at a profit. Richard Murphy, the anti-tax avoidance campaigner of Tax Research UK, said this arrangement gives clear potential for corporation tax to be avoided: "If the property here is owned by an offshore company, there is no corporation tax on the gain when the property is sold," he said. However, the Spurs spokesperson said this was not a reason for the property transfers and UK tax will be paid on any profit made. "The transfer was to clear debts out of our UK companies which had bought the properties, so the club itself is not carrying the debts," she said. "That will help with the bank financing required for the new stadium. Both this and the club are UK operating organisations and UK tax will be paid on all UK transactions."

Levy has strained for years to keep Spurs competitive with an income at 36,000-seat White Hart Lane £100m lower in total (in 2011-12) than Arsenal's £245m at the 60,000-seat Emirates Stadium. The spokesperson said with the work done over years to assemble and clear a new stadium site behind the current ground, and the changes made by the council, Spurs are confident they will finally put the project out to tender early next year and have "cranes on site" by the end of 2014. The £400m cost is to be raised from selling naming rights to the stadium, and bank borrowing to bridge the gap.

To the north behind the Paxton Road end of Spurs' home since 1899, a large site has been all but cleared, stretching from the current ground to a massive new Sainsbury's supermarket due to open shortly. The club bought dozens of properties there over recent years and says it successfully relocated 72 businesses, many to other premises locally. The supermarket site, on which Sainsbury's has taken a lease, Spurs preferring the regular cash flow rather than sell for a one-off sum, is also owned by TH Property Ltd in the Bahamas. It too was transferred on 27 March this year by Spurs property companies, Stardare Limited and Star Furnishing Company Limited, to the Bahamas company. A new university technical college for around 1,000 pupils aged 14-17, sponsored by Spurs themselves and Middlesex University, is being built above the Sainsbury's and will also lease the premises from TH Property Limited.

Just one of the old engineering and industrial concerns remains on Spurs' side of Tottenham High Road: Archway Metals, still working away on Paxton Road itself. Its proprietors, the Josif family, are resisting, and opposing in court the compulsory purchase order they have been served to clear them off. Archway, which employs aound 30 people, has argued that the huge new football stadium and associated development will create just 274 permanent new jobs and not be the "catalyst" for wider regeneration of Tottenham which the council, and the local Labour MP David Lammy, crave. The council took CPO proceedings after the firm would not agree a price to sell up to Spurs; a judgment is expected next month.

Spurs' struggles to satisfy excess demand from fans and cash in on their and the Premier League's soaring profile and popularity, are part of the wider agonies several clubs have had, to expand their grounds within the old urban neighbourhoods in which they originally nestled. Spurs, famously formed by school old boys who met under a lamppost on Tottenham High Road in 1882 to discuss playing the great new game of football, have outgrown White Hart Lane, their home since 1899. Sharing in the Premier League's £5.5bn 2013-16 TV deals, and having wrought €100m (£85m) from Real Madrid for Gareth Bale in the summer, Lewis's football club now inhabits a different financial galaxy from neighbouring businesses in Tottenham.

Having long recognised the need for a bigger stadium, and the income from selling 20,000 more tickets, corporate packages, catering and merchandising which could launch Spurs into the Premier League and European financial elite, Levy secured planning permission from Haringey council first in September 2011. By then he had already terrified the council by seriously competing with West Ham to occupy the Olympic Stadium site and move away from Tottenham, a still vibrant area but which has some neighbourhoods, close to White Hart Lane, among England's 2-3% most deprived.

After the summer 2011 riots, and the council's and Mayor of London's promise to invest public money in Tottenham, Spurs and the council renegotiated the terms of the planning permission. The council, according to its minutes of the decisions releasing Spurs from their previous obligations, also committed then to an "area-wide regeneration masterplan".

In a joint statement with the council leader, Claire Kober, on 31 January 2012, Levy made it clear that more development was a priority for him if Spurs were to consider staying in Tottenham viable. He had complained that land values in the area were too low to enable Spurs to finance the stadium with property development, as Arsenal substantially did in more fashionable and expensive Islington, by building desirable apartments in the shell of the old Highbury stadium.

"We have long said we could only invest in the area if we could see our commitment supported by others and that there was a real need to maximise the regeneration benefits and lift the wider area," Levy said then.

The club and council had, they said, entered into an agreement to support the new stadium project, and "to promote wider regeneration through the development of a 'North Tottenham Regeneration programme.'" That latter commitment produced the plans released in April for the massive development in High Road west, complete with Spurs walkway and demolition of businesses.

The Spurs spokesperson acknowledged that the club is a major landowner in that area, via the Bahamas company, but argued developing High Road west is necessary to complement the new stadium project.

"It is vital to have wider regeneration such that the effect of the investment in the stadium is maximised to the benefit of the whole community," she said. "We do own property in the High Road west area, but developing it is a long-term prospect; the funding for the new stadium does not depend on it at all."

She argues that committing to a £400m investment in Tottenham will bring invaluable economic and social benefits to the area. "With phase one nearing completion and the supermarket opening on 6 November, we are finally seeing the start of the much-needed regeneration in Tottenham. The stadium scheme is kickstarting it, creating a ripple effect of wider development, new jobs, schools and homes to an area of great need."

The council has defended its proposals in two stormy meetings with angry traders, many of whom see themselves becoming victims of the effort to please Spurs. Councillor Alan Strickland, the Haringey cabinet member for regeneration, denied that, saying the plans had been drawn up with a vision to improve the economic fortunes of "the whole of Tottenham". Strickland said the council was not giving favourable treatment to Spurs, but the club staying in Tottenham is hugely important to the area: "The club and the council have a shared agenda in terms of wanting the area to improve," he said. "We need to deliver for our residents and businesses, and clearly Spurs would like to have a stadium in a regenerated area, and that's fair enough. Obviously Spurs are a major landowner in [the High Road West] area, so Spurs are an important partner and we will continue to work with them very closely."

Dave Morris, the veteran campaigner who is involved with the Our Tottenham coalition of tenants' and community groups, said: "Tottenham people need more affordable rents, more council housing and more community facilities. In this plan, council tenants on the Love Lane estate are protected but private tenants and leaseholders are not. This is all corporate-led, a top-down, mega-development."

Haringey council, like other poor boroughs which historically host a Premier League club, believes accommodating Tottenham Hotspur is vital to change in its area, hence the agreement to waive the £16m for transport and public community improvements. In football, Daniel Levy has earned a reputation as a man who strikes hard-nosed deals in his club's favour, as Real Madrid can now attest. Levy spent all the Bale money on eight new players, including Roberto Soldado, £26m from Valencia, and Erik Lamela, £26m from Roma, to keep the team competitive while negotiating hard for his new stadium. Some would say that in Tottenham, in his own neighbourhood, which struggles with poverty and social deprivation, he has struck a keen deal too, via TH Property Limited, registered in the Bahamas.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/oct/30/tottenham-new-stadium-fury-regeneration

 

[Jordinho]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

Tottenham Hotspur new stadium: local traders oppose Haringey masterplan

• Council plans redevelopment of Tottenham High Road West
• 'We're being bullied out of our property,' says Chick King owner

Haringey council's "masterplan" for redevelopment of the Tottenham High Road West area opposite Spurs' planned new stadium, where Spurs own substantial property transferred to a company registered in the Bahamas, has met fierce opposition from local businesses.

Brian Dossett runs DW General Wood Machinists from a large factory at 855-863 Tottenham High Road, which his father and uncle started in 1948. Proudly spreading on his cluttered desk black and white photographs of the works as his family built it over the decades, Dossett says the business now employs 20 people: "We're proud of what we do, to have kept the business going for 65 years, constantly investing in new modern machinery, making whatever customers ask us to make."

A recent commission was a maple plaque marking this year's 50th anniversary of the National Theatre, which the Queen unveiled at a ceremony on the South Bank.

Like most of the businesses affected by Haringey council's proposed reshaping of the area, Dossett, busy working, found out almost accidentally and remains shocked by the discovery that DW is earmarked for demolition on all three of the council's plans.

"Somebody from the council explained to me that because Spurs are building a new stadium, they want to improve the area, but how can they make plans to knock down my property? That's theft. The government says we need real jobs: these are real jobs, but they want to drive us out to build houses."

Mechanic Sam Oliveri, who has run a garage on the fully occupied Pea**** industrial estate, off White Hart Lane, for 27 years, found out from another trader that the whole estate is slated to be demolished under two of the council's "masterplan" options. He supports and admires Spurs as a football team and wanted them to stay in Tottenham, but believes the plan has been worked up to enable the Premier League corporation to profit from residential development on previously industrial land.

"I started this business from scratch," he said. "Now they want to take my livelihood away, give me peanuts for it so somebody else can make a fortune."

Chick King, a fried chicken and chips shop opposite Spurs' current and proposed new stadium, which has famed status among Spurs fans. His father, who came to England from Cyprus, still lives above the shop. Chick King and the other shops in its row are earmarked for demolition, to make way for a new library next to the planned walkway for Spurs fans, just along from the current library. Tryfonos says the council failed to prepare businesses for the shock and has not discussed alternative locations or compensation. The council says it is too early to do so, because the plans are only proposals for consultation.

"We never had any intention of selling to Spurs or moving from Tottenham," Tryfonos says. "Now Spurs are staying, we are being bullied out of our property. As businesses we have come together and we are calling on the council to include and involve us in the plans to improve this area, not drive us out."

Lia-Clera Gomes and her husband Bob own and live with their children above the Urban Tattoo parlour, a 20-year fixture in a row on White Hart Lane planned to be demolished for the Spurs walkway. She discovered the plans from a friend, and broke down crying when the council confirmed them. "When Spurs were planning to leave, we signed the petition asking them to stay," she says. "Now, we have a question mark over our homes and our future. It is very upsetting."

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/oct/30/tottenham-hotspur-stadium-traders-oppose-haringey

 

[ringo]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

More ammo to use bashing the club everyone loves to hate ..sigh...

 

[Baleforce]

Re: Northumberland Development Project

we should have chick king inside the stadium, and that savoury pancake place