Annex 22
Letter, 26 January 2001, from Sport England
to the Chairman of WNSL
ENGLISH NATIONAL STADIUM, WEMBLEY
I am grateful for the opportunity to meet yesterday
to discuss the current issues related to the Wembley project.
The meeting was very helpful and I appreciated the openness of
our discussions. I thought it might be useful, following our meeting,
to confirm the key issues from our perspective:
— Revised package—I look forward
to confirmation of the revised package at the Board meeting on
31 January. Thank you for the update on progress to reduce the
cost of the scheme, and discussions with the FA in relation to
revenue guarantees to satisfy funders concerns.
— Athletics—thank you for clarifying
your position with regard to athletics. This was a very wide-ranging
discussion and I was encouraged by the openness you employed to
look at all the options available. I suggest we meet again soon
after next week's Board meeting to take forward matters in relation
to WNSL/FA's proposal to remove athletics and the payment of £20
million to Sport England. As we discussed, the issue is currently
in WNSL's court, following our letter confirming the Council's
approval, on 4 December 2000, of WNSL's application for the removal
of athletics. We look forward to hearing from you in due course.
In the meantime, we shall continue to review the legal issues
related to the content of and changes to the Lottery Funding Agreement.
— Timetable—as we discussed,
the timetable for the satisfaction of milestone three under the
Lottery Funding Agreement is currently 31 January 2001. It is
critical that details of the revised package and timetable are
available for review to enable us to consider further extensions
to the current timetable. As you know, our prime concern is to
ensure that our security is adequately protected, and we shall
therefore need confirmation that the existing stadium is capable
of being returned to full use within a matter of weeks as contemplated
under the FA Staging Agreement), and that the FA will continue
to underwrite the solvency of WNSL.
Finally, please do not hesitate to contact me
at any stage to discuss issues related to the project. We stand
ready to assist in ensuring that the project can move forward
at the earliest opportunity.
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