SRU, the back pitches and Edinburgh Wanderers
As reported in the Scotsman on 28th July 2018 (see “the SRU are turfing Edinburgh Wanderers out of their historic home on their back pitches at Murrayfield”.)
The article notes that “after Murrayfield RFC and Edinburgh Wanderers FC merged in 1997, the old clubhouse on Corstorphine Road was sold and the £300,000 proceeds invested in the new pavilion next to the main stadium. Public sports grants of £125,000 and £165,000 were made on the basis of a wider public benefit.”
Kids not Suits believes this funding to the SRU was for improvement to their back pitches. I asked Sportscotland to supply full details of the awards, with particular reference to the conditions attached to the grant, through an FOI request. The reply came back that only £50,000 had been awarded in 1992 for a new clubhouse for Wanderers amateur RFC.
So – £290,000 was awarded, but only £50,000 can be traced. No-one is owning up to providing the other £240,000 to the SRU. It may be possible to dig back through SRU accounts to 92/93, but an FOI would not do the trick – SRU are not a public body, so are not bound by the legislation to provide information. On the 14th Jan 2019, KnS has written to the Chief Exec asking to see annual reports through the 90s, from 1992 to 1997 and awaits a reply.
Digging
However, digging has unearthed some interesting data. Companies House have the SRU accounts online from 1995 onwards and studying them throws up useful information. The accounts for 1994-95 can be seen here. Under Note 13, Accruals and Deferred Income, it states the Foundation for Sport and Arts provided a £2M grant (presumably in 1992, ’93 or ’94) towards the redevelopment of Murrayfield. The grant was amortised at 1% pa in line with the depreciation rate being applied to associated Heritable property. The accounts note the “Tenant Clubhouse” (presumably the one we thought was owned by the Wanderers) being valued at £257,600 at 1/4/94. But if it features on the SRU accounts that presumably means that it is SRU property and so the Wanderers must have given the SRU the money the year before as a donation in order, presumably, for the SRU to build them a clubhouse. It would only be possible to clarify this by seeing the 92/93 and 93/94 accounts. I have asked the Chief Exec, on 15th Jan, for just these. If the Wanderers unconditionally donated the SRU their hard-earned cash in 1993 believing they would not be evicted 25 years later, then maybe that was, in retrospect, an unwise decision.
Looking at each year’s accounts (found here) “Cash Flow Statement” and checking the “Financing” section we see that each year the SRU got the following grants:
93/94 £572,894
94/95 £380,000
95/96 £12o,000
But we have no idea who gave the grants to the SRU and what for. Added together they make £1,192,894 – over £1m. But who granted this money and what for? Apparently, it was not Sport Scotland. I have asked the Chief Exec for info on these, too.
If we add this total to the £2M Foundation for Sport & Arts grant, we get a total of £3.19M. Amortising this at 1% pa for 25 years would reduce their heritable value by around £798,000 meaning that the present accrued value of these grants would be around £2.4M. If the grants were given for community use of SRU facilities, they must have some way to go before their value becomes negligible.
Have Sportscotland given SRU cash?
Sportscotland’s Sports Facilities Fund guidelines state “The project must have meaningful community access, provide community benefit and not be for private gain”.
Yet, the SRU are removing the community benefit aspect from whatever improvements their funding provided, by using the land to build a new mini-stadium for their own Edinburgh Rugby club use and reserving the pitches for their exclusive use or commercial hire. The Murrayfield Wanderers, a charity, have received but £50,000 for their £300,000 clubhouse. Amateur clubs are no longer welcome at Murrayfield.
So the articles in the press suggesting £290,000 came from SportScotland to the SRU might not be correct. Might the money have come from another body? But who else might give out tax-payers cash for a prjects such as this? The Offside Line said this grant was partnered by £510,000 from the Foundation for Sport & Arts.
It may yet be that the SRU are in breach of the conditions of grant, which was tax-payers money meant for community benefit.
The FOI was lodged largely at the behest of Ruth Davidson’s office; I was surprised that I had to do it, because I thought MSPs could seek information of public bodies and get a speedy reply. I persuaded her to write to Sportscotland, but her answer was the same a mine. Her email to them is here
I am in touch with the Wanderers RFC on this matter and they appreciate my efforts, though they are not in a position to campaign directly themselves.
Local groups the Friends of Roseburn Park and the Lord Provost Cllr Frank Ross are of the view that the SRU should agree to continuing to allow the Wanderers to use the back pitches and their old clubhouse. However, Johnny Petrie, MD of Edinburgh Rugby, has said this would be quite impossible. (Edinburgh Rugby is wholly owned and controlled by the SRU.) Mr Petrie declares Edinburgh Rugby will not be using the clubhouse for their own use, but this may wel be untrue. It may yet be rented out to a third party. The Wanderers clubhouse is apparently now worth £500,000 but they have received only £50,000 for it. They now operate from the old Armoury building in Roseburn Park, sharing space with the Murrayfield DAF’s cricket club. The building is single-story, dank and without windows but the Wanderers have made an effort to smarten it up a bit.
I also managed to persuade Kez Dugdale MSP to write to the SRU’s Chief Operating Officer, Dominic McKay, which is a start. You can see her letter here.
Andy Wightman MSP has said he will look into the matter on his return from leave on the 3rd Sept.
Readers wanting to know more, can click here
This isn’t the first time that Kids not Suits has had to lobby Sportscotland over undue SRU influence. More info here
UPDATE
On the 25th October, the SRU announced it would fund £150,000 for pitch improvements in Roseburn Park, after having negotiated a backroom deal with the Wanderers and Edinburgh Leisure (EL). However, the Park is a flood plain and it may transpire the cash could be better spent on two other pitches elsewhere. The group looking after the Park, Friends of Roseburn Park with over 200 local members, opposes building and new constructions on the park. Residents are concerned on two counts:
Presently there is a football and rugby pitch there, as the park plan shows. In March 2018, EL indicated that rather than two pitches for two sports on the west side of the park, they were planning to reduce provision to just one – playing on the East – West axis. It now appears that two rugby pitches are planned here, contrary to expectations. Clearly the Wanderers need two pitches at the weekend for matches and if the cash is purely for groundworks it is probably a good investment. But residents fear it may be used for floodlighting for evening training – a development that would be hugely unpopular in the area.
Putting floodlights into Roseburn rather than Saughton Park could fall foul of the Council’s Flood plain development prohibition. It’s hard to see why floodlighting would not constitute development, especially as Scottish Rugby had insisted that the back pitches were flood-protected, because their floodlighting constituted development.
The cash is being awarded because the SRU will be removing a pitch when they build their new mini-stadium on the back pitches. This would mean losing a pitch which they must re-provide elsewhere, ergo their interest in Roseburn. The mechanism whereby planning approval for the stadium, announced in September, was taken by officers rather than Councillors, is now under review, as the BBC reported on 26th Oct.