Whitewebbs Golf Course Development

[Wheeler Dealer]

I can't see any reasonable justification for club money being spent on this. If ENIC are doing it themselves, well, that's up to them. Using THFC money to do it is not on imo.

Still, there's no details yet so we don't know which it is as things stand.

THFC are saddled with debt, so absolutely no chance money being diverted from here to this development.

 

[hellava_tough]

One would imagine that a custom-built NFL training facility is essential if we're going to invite in a London NFL franchise to use our stadium.

Good move, tbh.

Also, where do NFL teams currently train, when they come to London to play?

 

[Doctor Dinkey]

Whitewebbs was a nice little municipal golf course, great for beginners. I learned to play there many years ago and played there quite recently. I really resent any notion that a public facility like this (and its accompanying right of way) should be flogged off for the benefit of a few rich business creeps. ENIC can go screw themselves. We'll be having fox hunting in Hilly Fields before you know it.

 

[JamieSpursCommunityUser]

Whitewebbs was a nice little municipal golf course, great for beginners. I learned to play there many years ago and played there quite recently. I really resent any notion that a public facility like this (and its accompanying right of way) should be flogged off for the benefit of a few rich business creeps. ENIC can go screw themselves. We'll be having fox hunting in Hilly Fields before you know it.

Unfortunately despite a marketing campaign, not enough people have been using it to cover it's upkeep. Hence why the Council put it's lease up for tender in 2019.

Hard to justify the perpetual bankrolling of it with £1.1m of public money in the current, or really any climate.

There were several pre-requisites for any bid. Enhancement of Public access. Outdoor Leisure use. Retention and maintenance of Woodland. We bid, and apparently won.

Given that, I can't see what ENIC have done wrong in this case. They may have totally failed to adequately maintain the playing squad, or challenge for silverware, but on matters such as infrastructure and community social responsibility the club have been pretty good, 2020 furlough hiccup aside.

Marketing of Whitewebbs Park Golf Course

Whitewebbs Park Golf Course is currently being marketed by Enfield Council. The aim of the council isn't to sell the park, but award a 25-year lease.

new.enfield.gov.uk

Whitewebbs Golf Course has been making a financial loss for a number of years despite the introduction of measures designed to increase income and reduce costs at the site. Since 2014/15 the golf club has lost more than £1.1million.

Since 2010 Enfield Council has been forced to find £193 million of savings because of government funding cuts and increasing pressure on services.

At a time of national crisis when our priority is protecting all of our communities and providing support for our most vulnerable residents, it would be irresponsible of Enfield Council to continue to use tax-payers money to subsidise an activity that is well provided for elsewhere across the borough.

Enfield has six full length courses and a pitch and putt course available for golfers.

In reality the Whitewebbs Golf Course has been closed for much of the last year and Enfield Council is currently in a process to determine the future of the site. This decision was taken and published in March 2019. Unfortunately, this process has been delayed because the coronavirus pandemic has affected the immediate priorities of the council and the applicants.

Enfield Council has consistently been clear that among other considerations, applicants must meet the needs of the wider community and any proposed future use of the site must increase community access to Whitewebbs for walking, recreation, leisure and other uses.

Any suggestion that the site will be used for housing or landfill are utter nonsense and scaremongering.

Enfield Council will be in a position to announce the next steps in the very near future.

 

[mill]

I can't see any reasonable justification for club money being spent on this. If ENIC are doing it themselves, well, that's up to them. Using THFC money to do it is not on imo.

Still, there's no details yet so we don't know which it is as things stand.

This is it IMO, who bought it and who receives the profits? Spurs or enic?

 

[Lighty64]

I'm not a golfer but it was just crap, owned by the council, badly maintained and hardly anyone ever playing on it.

I'm going back some years but it used to be a decent course and wasn't that easy to get on at times

 

[Gb160]

I'm going back some years but it used to be a decent course and wasn't that easy to get on at times

You must be going back mate, Im in my 40s and it's always been shit from what I remember

It makes sense from the clubs view though...it pretty much borders the training ground.

 

[Wine Gum]

This is it IMO, who bought it and who receives the profits? Spurs or enic?

There is evidence that previous property transactions by the club will end up with profits going directly to ENIC. We know that the Club spent circa £90M assembling land for the Stadium Development. We also know that some of the property purchases were in the High Road West area including the Goods Yard & former Sainsbury's sites. These sites were subsequently sold to ENIC Bahamas based entities along with Lillywhite House for fair value at the time to clear down Club debt to finance the stadium build. That may seem reasonable but some of the the sites now have planning consent and will have considerably increased in value. ENIC have further sold on some of their interest in the High Road West area sites. I cannot see any of these profits benefitting the Club other than an intangible regeneration gain to the area. Whilst spending on assembling the land the club finances were clearly constrained and would have influenced our transfer expenditure. Rather than transferring the properties to ENIC overseas entities they could have injected additional equity into the Club to clear the debts resulting in future profits benefiting the club.

 

[Duke of Northumberland]

Whitewebbs was a nice little municipal golf course, great for beginners. I learned to play there many years ago and played there quite recently. I really resent any notion that a public facility like this (and its accompanying right of way) should be flogged off for the benefit of a few rich business creeps. ENIC can go screw themselves. We'll be having fox hunting in Hilly Fields before you know it.

Isn't that what golf courses are for though?

 

[Lighty64]

You must be going back mate, Im in my 40s and it's always been shit from what I remember

It makes sense from the clubs view though...it pretty much borders the training ground.

well I'm 57 in a couple of weeks and most probably last played it 30yrs ago. My dad used to play it when we first both took up the game and told me it was pretty good quality. when I last played there the greens and up-keep where pretty good

 

[Wine Gum]

Does winning the Whitewebbs bid count as a trophy.

Community 'ignored' as Tottenham Hotspur win bid to take over vacant golf course

Enfield Council has been accused of "not listening" to residents after agreeing to hand over Whitewebbs Park Golf Course to Tottenham…

www.enfieldindependent.co.uk

 

[Deleted member 27855]

Does winning the Whitewebbs bid count as a trophy.

Community 'ignored' as Tottenham Hotspur win bid to take over vacant golf course

Enfield Council has been accused of "not listening" to residents after agreeing to hand over Whitewebbs Park Golf Course to Tottenham…

www.enfieldindependent.co.uk

The club claims it's for a training facility for Spurs women and a public park. Why am I finding that so difficult to believe?

 

[littlewilly]

The club claims it's for a training facility for Spurs women and a public park. Why am I finding that so difficult to believe?

This is a bit cynical. If you read it in a little more detail you’ll see it’s for a women and girls’ football academy; a sports turf training resource and a publicly accessible park with various enhanced facilities. This is all detailed in a Planning Application. If you want to consider what happened next door you’ll note that the Club did exactly what it said it was going to do, to an incredibly high standard. I don’t find it difficult at all to believe.

 

[Deleted member 27855]

This is a bit cynical. If you read it in a little more detail you’ll see it’s for a women and girls’ football academy; a sports turf training resource and a publicly accessible park with various enhanced facilities. This is all detailed in a Planning Application. If you want to consider what happened next door you’ll note that the Club did exactly what it said it was going to do, to an incredibly high standard. I don’t find it difficult at all to believe.

So your view is the club is spending millions of pounds of club money to lease the land and construct an academy on it costing millions more?

Is this a profitable venture with the clubs money or am I supposed to believe ENIC is doing this out of the kindness of their hearts?

I'm sorry but I'm not buying what you're selling.

 

[thekneaf]

So your view is the club is spending millions of pounds of club money to lease the land and construct an academy on it costing millions more?

Is this a profitable venture with the clubs money or am I supposed to believe ENIC is doing this out of the kindness of their hearts?

I'm sorry but I'm not buying what you're selling.

Yes because women's football is blowing up and the club want their piece. That means investing early.

If the club want to use the land for anything outside the proposal then they'll need to go through planning again and that will go through public consultation.

For an example of this, they are doing a very minor extension to the current facilities to make the youth gym and changing rooms bigger. Details are publicly available.

 

[riggi]

Buzzing for this. So exciting.

 

[Deleted member 27855]

Yes because women's football is blowing up and the club want their piece. That means investing early.

If the club want to use the land for anything outside the proposal then they'll need to go through planning again and that will go through public consultation.

For an example of this, they are doing a very minor extension to the current facilities to make the youth gym and changing rooms bigger. Details are publicly available.

I'm an American so I can't speak on the popularity of women's football in the UK. I can however speak to the popularly of the WNBA in America that has been "blowing up" for decades now. It's been blowing up to the tune of costing the NBA tens of millions of dollars each year to subsidize it with no profit in sight. It's a bottomless money pit.

You honestly think it's out of the realm of possibility that ENIC bought the site with an entirely different use in mind?

That they're supposedly building a women's training facility and a nice public park to push the purchase through? Then a year or so from now, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, some money changes hands and all of a sudden they've already purchased the land and now they've changed the plans and are building something entirely different than the current stated intent?

 

[JamieSpursCommunityUser]

I'm an American so I can't speak on the popularity of women's football in the UK. I can however speak to the popularly of the WNBA in America that has been "blowing up" for decades now. It's been blowing up to the tune of costing the NBA tens of millions of dollars each year to subsidize it with no profit in sight. It's a bottomless money pit.

You honestly think it's out of the realm of possibility that ENIC bought the site with an entirely different use in mind?

That they're supposedly building a women's training facility and a nice public park to push the purchase through? Then a year or so from now, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, some money changes hands and all of a sudden they've already purchased the land and now they've changed the plans and are building something entirely different than the current stated intent?

The potential land grab grift I think you're alluding to whereby ENIC suddenly decide to make money building houses instead, isn't at all possible in this scenario for various reasons.

First of all the land is being leased by Enfield Council, so ENIC wouldn't own anything to sell and any planning permissions are subject to approval with the same Enfield Council.

Furthermore even if they did own it, or were somehow able to pull off some shady back hander with someone in the Council, the land sits on "Green Belt" which is a long established protected zone from major development. It's national policy out therefore out of the Council's hands in any case.

FYI the costs are low. £2m over 25 years, with £500k of it paid up front.

Council awards 25-year Whitewebbs Park lease to Spurs

Concerns raised over public access when football academy is opened, reports Simon Allin, Local Democracy Reporter The former northern clubhouse of Whitewebbs

enfielddispatch.co.uk

"the financial benefits to the council – an initial premium of £500,000 followed by £75,000 yearly rent from year six to 25."

I calculated that the monthly rent of the site is about the cost of renting a 4+ bedroom house in London. The council just want it off their hands as the Golf Course looses money.

There are already buildings on the site, which the club will refurbish. So it's a quick, inexpensive, and low risk project.

There is significant growth and participation in Women's football over here, whilst it's astutely being a new avenue for major clubs to reach new fans. Particularly overseas.

In any case given the sites location, it's also useable for our academy teams.

Plenty to criticise ENIC for in recent years, but this move seems like a no brainer to me.

 

[littlewilly]

The potential land grab grift I think you're alluding to whereby ENIC suddenly decide to make money building houses instead, isn't at all possible in this scenario for various reasons.

First of all the land is being leased by Enfield Council, so ENIC wouldn't own anything to sell and any planning permissions are subject to approval with the same Enfield Council.

Furthermore even if they did own it, or were somehow able to pull off some shady back hander with someone in the Council, the land sits on "Green Belt" which is a long established protected zone from major development. It's national policy out therefore out of the Council's hands in any case.

FYI the costs are low. £2m over 25 years, with £500k of it paid up front.

Council awards 25-year Whitewebbs Park lease to Spurs

Concerns raised over public access when football academy is opened, reports Simon Allin, Local Democracy Reporter The former northern clubhouse of Whitewebbs

enfielddispatch.co.uk

"the financial benefits to the council – an initial premium of £500,000 followed by £75,000 yearly rent from year six to 25."

I calculated that the monthly rent of the site is about the cost of renting a 4+ bedroom house in London. The council just want it off their hands as the Golf Course looses money.

There are already buildings on the site, which the club will refurbish. So it's a quick, inexpensive, and low risk project.

There is significant growth and participation in Women's football over here, whilst it's astutely being a new avenue for major clubs to reach new fans. Particularly overseas.

In any case given the sites location, it's also useable for our academy teams.

Plenty to criticise ENIC for in recent years, but this move seems like a no brainer to me.

Excellent post Jamie. I’m really pleased that the Club are investing in women’s football and if the facility is anything like our stadium and the Lodge then it will be something we’ll be equally proud of.

 

[Delboy75]

I think it’s very cynical to think there’s a cunning plan behind this. The plans are very detailed and very strong on the side of nature conserve. The club have already shown they are doing a lot on the green front and nature side with the garden in the training ground growing own food. The club have also done a lot for the ladies team. I fully believe this is exactly what it says on the tin, I don’t think ENIC/Tavistock have to be sneaky about property development. If they wanted it for property they would have put an application in. Plus a rental of 75k is tiny that will probably be made back with food/beverage outlets. Although the bit about Spurs never having run a public park before is quite amusing. Built the best training facility in the country I reckon we can handle a park haha.

Although one thing I would add was that there were some noises about an NFL training facility. If a London franchise did ever happen, having this land as a possible option may have been in the thinking.