William Hill have ended their sponsorship of the Greyhound Derby but GRA boss Clive Feltham believes the event will still take place at Wimbledon next year.
He said: “It is disappointing but Hills have been great sponsors for the last 15 years, on and off. They are good guys but there is a lot going on in terms of share price and trading conditions and we are talking about a lot of money. As far as I am concerned, the Derby will go ahead at Wimbledon next year and thankfully the early early announcement gives us plenty of time to plan ahead. Obviously, if Galliards came along tomorrow and called in the lease, we would have to be gone by January.
“But I don’t think it is in their interest to do so, as they showed when they renewed last time. In addition to the greyhounds, we run the stock cars and the rentals which they would have to take on themselves,
CLIVE FELTHAM
and even if they were given planning permission tomorrow, I can’t see them being ready to move onto the site until at least next September.”
Feltham believes that the local term future of the site is still in the flux and will be determined by events away from the stadium, starting with the new Mayor’s decision in the autumn as to whether to approve the Galliards plan.
He said: “The problem for greyhound racing has been the (Merton) Council. They were so desperate to get football back that they were prepared to allow just 8% of affordable housing. Given Sadiq Khan’s political background, he might just decide that is unacceptable. Other factors will also come into consideration. For example, one of the affects of Brexit is an anticipated decline in foreign investment in buy-to-let housing, which has always been a good safe investment in London.
“Galliards will have to pay £14m to the football club, give up a huge area of their site, and then might have to increase their affordable housing quota. Bear in mind, that it won’t be a big payday for them because most of the profit, it not all, still has to go back pay off the original loan. They borrowed £54m, plus interest, and probably only got around £7-8m in for the sale of the rest of the tracks. If they can’t get enough from the Wimbledon plan as it stands, they may want to review their options and that might include the sort of option that Paschal (Taggart) has talked about.”
