From:
www.southwalesargus.co.ukNEWPORT Wasps fans will not see their heroes return to action in 2009.
Reading-based international businessman Roger Youngs has pulled out of talks with the owners of Hayley Stadium claiming they wanted to raise the rent by more than 100%.
A spokesman for Cardiff-based property company Sydney & London Properties Ltd did confirm that the current £34,000-per-year rent is up for review in June of next year, but refused to discuss Youngs’ claim that he was told the rent would go up to a staggering £87,480 per annum.
“All I can tell you is that we’ve only been dealing with our solicitors and those of Newport Speedway Ltd (in effect Newport Wasps), whose secretary is Ken Wood (step-father of late Newport speedway promoter Tim Stone),” said Richard Annings, spokesman for the property company.
“I can also tell you that Newport Speedway Ltd has been the perfect tenant and has always paid its rent on time.”
Youngs, who has a UK-based management company with overseas interests, told the Argus that he and Wood had been negotiating with Sydney & London Properties Ltd and that a deal to bring speedway back to Newport was imminent – until he discovered the rent increase.
“We were ready to sign on the dotted line, when they (Sydney & London Properties Ltd) hit us with the bombshell,” claimed Youngs, currently on a business trip to South Africa.
“We didn’t mind losing a bit of money to start with, but the rent increase was on a 125-year lease and they were simply impossible terms to agree with.
“It’s a huge blow to fans of the sport in Newport, who I know are desperate to see their team return to the track.”
Youngs would have taken up Stone’s mantle as Newport promoter and was to bring in Malcolm Holloway and Mark Legg as his team management duo, the pair having been successful over recent years in various roles with Reading Racers.
Wasps followers have been left in limbo since the death of Newport Speedway Ltd owner and promoter Stone, who died in April aged 54 while visiting his ill mother at the city’s Royal Gwent Hospital.
All of the seven-strong riding team left to join rival British Premier League clubs with the British Speedway Promoters Association eventually confirming Newport Wasps would not run again this year.
Stone, helped by an army of volunteers, built Hayley Stadium in time for the 1997 speedway season to bring the sport back to Newport for the first time in 30 years.
The return was an instant success and by the time the club lifted the BPL Trophy with a thrilling second-leg home win over Edinburgh Monarchs in 1999, crowds were in excess of 2,000.
In recent years, the team’s lack of success has resulted in more modest crowds passing through Hayley Stadium’s turnstiles, although it would only take one good Wasps team to witness a huge resurgence.
Mr Wood was last night unavailable for comment.
