Car Giant has received a wave of positive publicity for its proposals for Old Oak in local and Londonwide newspapers, on TV news and in specialist building publications. This has included positive responses from those who will make the planning decisions for Old Oak.
At the same time, the club has been silent on its proposal for a stadium at Old Oak and has not published a meaningful update since November last year.
The TV news coverage reported that QPR turned down a request to be interviewed for the story. The club did not even provide a statement and so the positive coverage for the Car Giant bid was undiluted.
The club website does not record positive publicity in the media for the QPR proposal since September 2014.
We believe that the club should break the silence and share with supporters real information on the latest proposals and options for a new stadium.
We are asking for a meeting with the club’s chief operating officer Mark Donnelly to discuss these issues.
Some of the publicity for the Car Giant scheme includes apparently supportive comments from the local council leader and from the chair of the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation, which will decide who will develop Old Oak.
In January, the club welcomed the comments by Sir Edward Lister, who is now chair of the Development Corporation. A club statement reported that Lister said that the “Old Oak regeneration should be stadium-led – ‘we would like to see one (a stadium)’.” The club described this as “a significant boost to the club’s hopes of building a new stadium near Loftus Road”.
This week, Lister said on BBC London News; “Do I think a stadium is essential to a redevelopment – no”.
He also said: “I think there is scope within the Old Oak Common area for QPR to find a suitable site. I think that is perfectly possible and I am sure it will happen over the course of time”. He seemed to be referring to parts of Old Oak where the land is not owned by Car Giant.
We would like to know the club response to this comment and what it means for the stadium proposal.
As we reported earlier this month, more than 3,000 QPR supporters answered the call from the club to send in messages of support for the stadium to the Development Corporation. It is time the club treated supporters as intelligent partners and shared its proposals with us.