Saints » News

Members of the public have contacted St Helens Rugby League Club to express their outrage at the content of letters which they have recently received from the Board of Directors of Morrisons just prior to the planning hearing for the new stadium and other major regeneration developments of St Helens on May 20. Morrisons have objected to the planning application.

The support of the public, locally and nationally, for the planning application has been unanimous and overwhelming. The Morrisons’ letters contain a series of misleading and wholly inaccurate statements which are totally irrelevant to the Planning Application and are clearly designed only to undermine the public support for the planning application whilst preserving its own present dominant market position in St Helens.

Given this, St Helens Rugby League Club is compelled to issue this statement in order to establish the truth of the position.

Examples of misstatements within the letters, each of which are from a Main Board Director of Morrisons, include:

Morrisons’ Misstatement: St Helens MP Dave Watts considers that there are no real grounds supporting the approval of the Planning Application.

Fact: Dave Watts is wholly supportive of the application and is convinced of its merits and grounds.

Morrisons’ Misstatement: St Helens Rugby League Club is a commercial success and should be reinvesting in its existing stadium.

Fact: Despite its phenomenal rugby success and a highly professional management, St Helens have posted material operational losses in each of the last 10 years. This is almost entirely due to the major limitations place on commercial performance and opportunities by the lack of modern facilities at Knowsley Road. There are no profits to reinvest in the stadium, only losses to fund.

Morrisons’ Misstatement: The Club are not using its own financial resources to improve its stadium.

Fact: The major financial investor and direct contributor to the new stadium is St Helens Rugby Club. However, the major beneficiary of the Club’s financial commitment will not be the shareholders of the Club, who are making the contribution, but the town of St Helens itself which will consequently benefit from years of business regeneration and economic improvement.

Morrisons’ Misstatement: The Club is not investing in its playing squad and not signing any new players as is borne out by its results and lack of new signings.

Fact: The first team squad of St Helens has 17 internationals and contains the bulk of the GB team. It has recently re-signed its key players on long-term contracts in addition to a New Zealand international and it has the most successful youth academy in the game, a number of whom have recently been promoted to the first team. The Club has won six of the last seven major trophies in the game.

Morrisons’ Misstatement: The Club has an owner who is not investing anything in the Club.

Fact: The Chairman has personally funded the losses of the Club for each of the last seven years and continues to do so. This is in addition to him rescuing the Club from Administration in 2002. The Club would not trade without this financial support, which has been principally necessitated by the commercial limitations placed on the Club by the lack of facilities at Knowsley Road. A major redevelopment of Knowsley Road is a non-financeable proposition. A new stadium is the only practicable option to ensure the commercial future of the Club which cannot continue to be dependant on the financial support of an individual or individuals.

Morrisons’ Misstatement: A potential loss of Super League status is utter nonsense.

Fact: The governing body of the RFL has written in detail and directly to the Club and to the Borough Council setting out the high degree of importance accorded to stadium facilities in determining licence issuance. A cursory glance at the ten licensing criteria shows that five are directly and indirectly related to quality of stadium and attendant facilities. Almost all other licence applicants have or will have new stadia. Due to the new stadium proposal of St Helens, they are likely to be awarded a three-year licence in 2008. However, failure of the planning application will be highly prejudicial to the licence renewal of St Helens in 2011.

St Helens Rugby League Club fully agree with the outrage expressed by the recipients of the letters. The statements made by Morrisons, in addition to being fundamentally wrong and misleading, are utterly irrelevant to the planning application. We can only conclude that they are designed to distract the public’s attention away from the obvious and clear reason for their planning objection, namely to protect their existing dominant supermarket interests in St Helens. We consider that they are placing these above and before the continued existence of the town’s world famous rugby club and above the necessary and long-term economic regeneration of the town (ironically of which its own existing businesses would be a major beneficiary in any event).

The level of ignorance displayed by Morrisons in their letters to the public have only been exceeded in their arrogance in assuming that the public will be imbecilic enough to believe any aspect of their crude and ill-founded smear campaign. In particular, they have as much right and ability to be commenting on the content and quality of our squad as we have to comment on the content and quality of their baked beans.

It is perplexing that Morrisons are the only supermarket group to object to the planning application. The crude and amateurish methods that a publicly-listed group have resorted to should be of grave concern to their body of shareholders. Regardless of the outcome of the planning application, Morrisons’ underhand tactics and disdain for the public is likely to have a severe negative effect on their brand and reputation.

News

St Helens Public and Rugby League Club Aghast at Morrisons' Tactics and Methods

Main Sponsor

Exclusive Zone

Saints Lottery

Primary Partners

Stadium Partner