Falmer: Why university pulled out

The Albion wanted a stadium at Village Way North, Falmer, but could not agree terms with the university, which owns part of the site.

The club now wants to build a short distance away, but the university opposes that plan too.

The following is Sir David's letter to all city councillors ahead of a meeting next Thursday, which will decide whether to include the Falmer stadium in the city's new planning blueprint.

IN ADVANCE of the full council debate on the Local Plan scheduled for July 26, I feel it would be helpful to set out the main facts about the University of Brighton's position on the proposed stadium at Falmer.

The university has been an enthusiastic and constructive advocate of a community stadium for the new city of Brighton and Hove, not least to provide an appropriate home for Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club.

We work closely with the professional teams in the city, with local schools, and with regional and local sports bodies, all of whom deserve such a facility. We would also wish to make significant use ourselves of such an important resource for the community.

The university contributed openly to the sequential analysis that identified the site at Falmer partly on university land and partly on land owned by the city council as the council's preferred option.

The university land in question covers approximately 5.3 acres and contains approximately 4,500 square metres of academic buildings, all of which are very intensively used.

The university's development plan for its Falmer campus aims to replace these buildings by 2010. Until then, they are a vital part of the university's accommodation, without which it could not meet its teaching obligations. Resources have not yet been identified to fund this phase of the development.

In partnership with others, and under the chairmanship of council officers, we have tried extremely hard to make this option viable. As the deadline approached for the submission of the club's planning application at the end of June, there were three sets of unresolved issues.

First, on the legal arrangements, agreement had been reached in principle that the university would lease its land to the council so the latter could parcel it up with its own land and lease it to the company to be formed to develop the stadium.

This lease would have been for a peppercorn rent (i.e. free, after making a contribution to university replacement costs - see below).

The purpose of the structure would be to enable the university, as landlord, to achieve protections in respect of such matters as the physical and operational impact on our campus, the naming of the stadium, its completion and appropriate use thereafter, as well as control over ancillary developments. In other words it would have secured the project as a community facility and not just a commercial enterprise subject to the same kind of risks that the Albion has experienced in the recent past. The parties were continuing to negotiate on all of these matters.

Secondly, the university remained concerned about aspects of the design proposals for the stadium and for the supporting infrastructure. The building as proposed overshadowed the campus in an unacceptable way, although our professional advisors suggested that it could be lowered further.

Our campus needs to operate both for students and staff, as well as for the residents and other occupants of the site, including the Brighton Health and Racquet Club, during weekends and evenings.

The plans for moving fans to and from public transport and car parks in order to cause minimum disruption had not been finally agreed.

Most seriously, the plans included no provision for widening or developing the very narrow entrance to both the campus and the stadium along Village Way. Again all parties were working hard to try to resolve these matters.

Then came the bombshell.

The university had entered into the negotiations on the express understanding that the project would make a substantial contribution towards reprovision elsewhere on the campus of the buildings it would have to give up in order to hand over, for nothing, the land required.

It was, of course, up to the university to determine the specification of these anticipated costs according to its needs. A figure representing about half of these costs was regularly included in papers prepared by the club, and, while recognising that the project might not be able to bear the full cost, it was made clear that this figure would not be regarded as sufficient by the university.

In the event, and at the very last minute, the club reduced their own figure by a further 60 per cent in a "final offer". Furthermore they were only prepared to pay half up front and half on completion of the stadium.

The club has claimed in several statements during the last two weeks that their figure is based upon a professional evaluation. They have not made clear this is an evaluation they commissioned of the sale price of the land for alternative use.

However, it was never intended that the land should be sold. It is, after all, not surplus to the university's requirements. The university has only considered alienating this land as a contribution to the specific partnership in support of the community stadium.

For that reason, the cost of replacing the buildings is at the heart of the matter. The Ccub themselves consistently recognised this up to the last moment. The relevant line of their Outline Business Case, as presented to the council, is entitled not "Purchase of Land" but "Reprovision of University Buildings".

In a meeting on June 22, the university's board of governors determined that the club's position undermined the basis of the negotiations they had in November 1999, in good faith, authorised me to enter on their behalf.

The outcome has also raised for them concerns about the overall financial viability of the project as a whole.

While we have avoided any comment on the figures involved, specifically to preserve the club's negotiating position with potential investors, it is relevant that the initial payment to the university which was proposed by the club is almost exactly matched by the value of the rental receipts they anticipated back from the university for use of specialist facilities.

In other words, at the last minute, the club not only expected to receive a free gift of land, but for the university to undertake the whole of the initial investment in reprovisioning its buildings with no net contribution from the stadium project.

As a publicly-funded body, with responsibility to our 18,000 students and 2,500 members of staff, the university could not possibly accept this proposition.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the club was never serious about reimbursing the university at a reasonable level, nor about operating on the selected site if it would involve meeting significant obligations to the university.

This conclusion is reinforced by their statement of July 2 that they "saw a problem looming some time ago" and "decided to develop an alternative proposal for Falmer in the event that we could not reach an agreement." During the discussions this prospect was never raised with the university, nor, I believe, with council officers.

It was first announced, by the club, in the letter containing their "final offer" on 15 June.

This alternative location is unacceptable to the university for several reasons. It is on land identified in the Local Plan as a contribution to an area of outstanding natural beauty.

In this position a design which might have been made acceptable alongside a main road and a railway line, and partly on brownfield land, would be significantly more obtrusive.

It solves none of the identified problems about traffic circulation to and from the campus. It places the campus even more directly in a line between the stadium and the point in Falmer at which the majority of the supporters will arrive, and hence will make protection of our everyday activities significantly more difficult. Finally, it offers none of the protection directly enforceable by a lease of land from the university.

The university will oppose any planning application for the stadium in this new location.

Meanwhile, contrary to the information in the club's "round robin" of July 2, the University of Sussex's car parks will not be available in these circumstances.

The University of Sussex, which has also played a constructive role in the discussions aimed at making the original plans viable, has made it clear that it could not co-operate with a scheme that does not have the full support of the three main parties: Brighton and Hove City Council, Brighton and Hove Albion, and the University of Brighton.

The University of Brighton's Falmer campus is a hive of successful partnership activity in support of the community. More than 1,000 local and regional part-time students study alongside their full-time colleagues in areas such as education, health, and languages.

Key research centres support local projects and local people from the schools and college sector, business and the NHS, including the New Deal for the Community.

In 2003 the Brighton and Sussex Medical School - a partnership between the universities of Brighton and Sussex and the local NHS trusts - will open, bringing both substantial investment and the prospects of real health gains to the community of Brighton and Hove (Relevant planning applications have recently been submitted by both universities.)

A Sports Development Unit, bringing together leading local and regional agencies, was recently opened by Trevor Brooking, chairman of Sport England.

In line with the priorities of the Education Action Zone, further sports and community facilities are planned in partnership with Falmer School and the council.

The new student residential village (about to be expanded) is a partnership with London and Quadrant Housing Association. The Health and Racquet Club, is a highly successful public/private partnership, achieved on a sensitive site after complex negotiations.

In collaboration with the Brighton and Hove Bus Company, the university has invested in improvements enabling buses to enter the site for the first time.

On Friday evenings the campus is given over to rehearsals by the eight ensembles of the Brighton Youth Orchestra, which is given both space and administrative support by the university.

And so on. All of these partnerships thrive on the basis of ambition and imagination, but also on realism, trust and mutual respect.

So what is the present position?

The University of Brighton has not withdrawn from nor itself caused the breakdown of negotiations based on the proposition made by the council for a community stadium at Falmer. It has contributed openly, constructively and flexibly to these negotiations.

For example, it has been prepared to examine a proposition made by the club that students and staff should move into temporary accommodation in order to facilitate earlier release of the land than originally envisaged. It has incurred very considerable abortive costs in carrying the discussions forward (unlike the club, it has not had any commercial sponsorship of such costs).

Its current position is that of a conditional rejection of support for the original proposals for a planning application. I have tried to set out above the main areas in which conditions would have to be met in order to win its support.

The university does not believe the club's alternative location is tenable, again for reasons set out above. In particular, I would urge the Council not to undermine its commitment to the environment by amending the Local Plan in the way in which the club has suggested.

We were very surprised to read material circulated by the club stating the council has already agreed to make such a change. To our knowledge, the council has made no such commitment.

The university is prepared to re-enter discussions at any time aimed at trying to find a way forward on the original proposition. In the event that this is not possible, or that the other partners are not willing to return to the table, the university will continue to urge the case for a community stadium in Brighton and Hove.

It may, for example, now be possible both to re-examine previous options and to examine alternative sites within the city which were not available when the original sequential analysis was performed.

I should be happy to answer any queries you may have about the university's position.

Yours sincerely, Sir David Watson, Director