MCC offered £15m sweetener to accept Lord’s blocks of flats
Property developer tries to entice club members Home of Cricket split over £150m proposal
MCC members will be paid two years of their annual membership if they agree to the building of residential flats at the Nursery End when the club holds a final vote on their long-term redevelopment of the Home of Cricket.
Rifkind Associates, the property developer that owns the leasehold of land at the Nursery End, will pay a £15 million “disturbance payment” to the club’s members, which equates to two years’ subscription for its 18,000 members, as a thankyou to agreeing to put up with huge building works if its plan to erect two residential blocks is approved.
The MCC owns the leasehold of the top 18 inches of land at the Nursery End. But in 1999 property developer Charles Rifkind bought a 999-year lease on the 38-metre strip of land underneath Lord’s running the length of the Nursery End for £2.35million.
Rifkind Associates will offer the club a £100million letter of credit in return for the MCC relinquishing its 120-year lease on the top 18 inches and another £35million in kind to be allowed to build on the Nursery End. The £15million sweetener to members brings the total cost of the project to £150 million.
The club will this week write to members outlining two options for the way forward to fund the complete overhaul of the ground.
The first option will be to vote for the offer from Rifkind Associates to build two, 10-storey blocks comprising 97 residential flats at the Nursery End in return for the £135million that would fund the rebuilding of the Tavern, Compton and Edrich stands and other areas of the ground.
But the club believes it can fund the work from its own resources and with a level of borrowing without taking the money from the developers and building the apartments. The club drew up its own ‘Masterplan for Lord’s’ in 2013, which includes the rebuilding of the same areas of the ground but funded from the club’s resources.
This saga has run for nearly a decade and last year the club commissioned independent reports on both projects, which will be sent to members this week, to bring the matter to an end once and for all. There will be a major consultation period that will end with a vote at a Special General Meeting in September.
Members will be sent a survey and invited to five workshops around the country this summer to discuss the proposals with representatives from both sides.
The result of the survey will form the recommendation of the MCC committee that will go to members before the vote at the SGM. Both schemes would lift the capacity of Lord’s to 32,000 but work will not be completed until 2032 at the earliest. The MCC has ruled out moving out of Lord’s while work is carried out, which means it will have to be completed piece by piece.
The ground is hosting the 2019 World Cup final and work is on hold until after that event. There is not enough space at Lord’s for two lots of building works at the same time.
It is estimated the residential blocks will take two years to build, during which time there will be no other work undertaken on the ground. The £15million payment to members is compensation for the upheaval.
The Rifkind Associates plan for the Nursery End includes a new hospitality entrance on Wellington Road, a cricket academy, multilevel food village as well as the rebuilding of the Compton and Edrich stands. A new Nursery Pavilion would also be built.
An earlier plan to use the undercrofts and old railway tunnels at the Nursery End has been abandoned.
But the issue of allowing residents to live on Lord’s and part of the estate no longer being under the control of the MCC is hugely controversial. Arguments over its future has led to internal war at the club. At one stage former Prime Minister Sir John Major resigned from the committee over the handling of the affair.
Lord’s has already begun work on its Masterplan. This summer the new Warner Stand opened and a £4million refit of the media centre was completed over the winter.
The next step in its plans are to rebuild the Compton and Edrich stands and the Tavern and Allen stands in the south-west corner of the ground.
The projected cost of the Tavern and Allen stand rebuild is estimated at £74million. The design includes 5,200 seats for spectators, an increase of 1,082 seats compared to the existing stand.
By financing the ground from its own funds the MCC will fight for Lord’s to retain two Test matches per year and be at the forefront of the Twenty20 league to be introduced in 2020, which brings in a guaranteed £1.3million per year.
Whether the MCC retains two Test matches will depend on the make-up of the future international calendar. The club has hosted two Tests per year since 2000 but the ECB is likely to reduce the number of Tests per year to six from 2020.
English cricket now has eight Test-match grounds and many need international fixtures to survive financially so there is pressure on the ECB to spread them around.
The money from the next television deal will inject revenue into the English game that the ECB hopes will reduce the dependency on ticket sales from international matches.
Lord’s has a strong case for hosting two Tests a year because of the MCC’S ability to sell tickets even for unfashionable matches. Plus touring teams always want to play at the Home of Cricket.