Effect on County?

David Buttress steps down as Dragons chairman after seven years

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/david-buttress-steps-down-dragons-29086515#ICID=Android_WalesOnlineNewsApp_AppShare

David Buttress was never the money man at the Dragon's that's David Wright ex Pontypool, and ex Compeed plus a guy from the Far East with lots of capital.

They were the only ones interested after 4 years of trying to find investment.

Owning a ground when you only play there 10 times a season is more of a financial problem than an asset. Driving away the most frequent user because they can't afford to stay is not a great idea financially.

So now HJ can actually negotiate with the owners representatives, they can look at how to save money and make it work for everyone.

Playing at RP has always bothered me because of our lack of control and requirement to have a very expensive pitch because we share with rugby and the fragile nature of our hosts whose own future is dodgy. In some ways it has been good for us but we are left with nowhere else to go. We can only place our faith in HJ and hope for the best. Supporting County is never easy.

Obviously we need the expensive pitch and they don't. The other thing that I find interesting is that in the RP accounts there is no depreciation shown for RP. It would be normal for a stadium with few other uses, to lose actual value, and for that to be calculated at upwards of 5% per annum. In the RP accounts there is no depreciation value shown. I guess that the Stadium being bought cheap by the WRU means that adding a £1 million pound asset stops it depreciating.
So the owner spends money on the pitch but in effect gets it back with lack of depreciation in stadium value.
If someone has capital to spend, depreciation is an investment problem to overcome. Like buying a car, it depreciates 20% the first year and 10% subsequently. So it pays to work that out against rental costs to see the difference.
If County owned RP we would still have all the same problems but with the club sharing only playing 10 games, and able to play elsewhere.

I'm guessing the appeal wasn't so much in the stadium, but in the land to the north of the stadium. If they rebuild the North Stand and incorporate the Squash courts into the design (and possibly a couple of bars inside/outside) then that gives them space from the cabbage patch northwards to sell for housing or hotel use...