There has been much made today of Tottenham's plans to demolish most of the 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium and replace it with a £250m purpose-built stadium of its own should it be selected by the Olympic Park Legacy Company to take on the site.
The first thing to say is Tottenham has never hidden its belief that it would be cheaper and more sensible for it to demolish the Olympic Stadium and start again at the site.
The point is that speaking to experts in such matters I am reliably informed that there are very good reasons for Spurs' stance which suggest at the very least that it was more than a little unfortunate that government did not line up a football anchor for the stadium back when construction begun.
Firstly, the £533m construction cost of the stadium is clearly expensive even by the Premiership's standards and even taking into account the contamination and infrastructure works needed. I am told that Arsenal's splendid Emirates stadium project cost around £390m including major infrastructure works while Tottenham is understood to be budgeting £250m to build a new stadium at Stratford.
The reason that the Olympic Stadium is so expensive is in part because it needs to be able to be scaled back to a 20,000 seat athletics stadium post Games if that is what the market demands. Do not ask me why but that apparently has made the stadium quite expensive to construct technically.
Insiders tell me there are a number of issues Tottenham is likely to have a problem with at the Olympic Stadium that would cost a lot to resolve.
One, believe it or not, is that there is apparently no kitchen in the stadium.
Another is that the roof of the stadium - as it is only to be used during the summer during the Games - has not been powder coated to protect against rust.
Another issue is that the roof has not been fully designed to protect against significant wind and rain, again a result of the Games taking place in the summer.
"It is designed with minimal facilities," is what Tottenham's architectural adviser David Keirle has to say.
"All the concessions are outside, it has no toilets, suites, boxes and very limited hospitality. It doesn't have a roof."
It would be great to hear from experts in the matter as to why Tottenham wants to spend another £250m building a stadium when there is a £533m one already built.
Another point that does not seem to have been highly scrutinised is that Tottenham want to pay off UK Athletics by expanding Crystal Palace to 25,000 and build a running track.
As my earlier comment highlighted. A very contentious LDA sponsored masterplan, 5 years in the making was approved in December 2010. It went to public inquiry mainly due to a small area of the park being turned over to housing to pay for improvements.
The approved masterplan involved downgrading the current stadium as Athletics was moving to post legacy Stratford. However the current stadium and future plans do not envisage a warm up track ( one of Crystal Palaces main faults as an Athletics track) which would mean one having to be built in what is a listed park and on metropolitan open land.
I see Boris is apparently keen for Tottenham to bid for the stadium. Conveniently the LDA now own Crystal Palace Athletics Stadium but do not have the money or inclination to press ahead with redevelopment and would dearly love someone else to step in with a bit of cash. Should a private operator, such as Tottenham take over not just one but two publicity funded sports arena then I'm sure the LDA and Mayors office would be very pleased.
Thanks QA - you highlight an area that has not been covered and needs to be - I hope you don't mind but I would like to use some of it as a letter response in Estates Gazette magazine -
Latest news is that CPFC are going to announce on Thursday that they want to move to the NSC.
The question is do CPFC intend to keep the Athletics track .....or will they propose to build one in Stratford!!