Claassen's heritage crusade suffers setback
NEWS: Former Springbok captain Wynand Claassen suffered a major setback in his bid to have the Newlands stadium declared a heritage site.
The Interpretation Grading and Inventories Committee of Heritage Western Cape, at its meeting on Friday, made a recommendation not to support the proposed nomination by Claassen and his ‘Save Newlands Rugby Stadium’ consortium to have the iconic stadium declared a heritage site.
“The committee considers that the Newlands Rugby Stadium does not possess enough intrinsic heritage value,” the committee said at its meeting.
Their proposal to turn down Claassen’s proposal will now be submitted to the Heritage Western Cape Council for a final decision.
It is a massive blow for a campaign that was started in June last year and put on hold attempts to sell the stadium to pay off almost ZAR200-million in debut and put the Western Province Rugby Football Union back in black.
@rugby365com has approached Claassen for his reaction and will add his comments when received.
Friday’s recommendation follows an earlier legal opinion of Bridget O’Donoghue, an architect and heritage specialist, who also suggested that Newlands does not possess sufficient “architectural, aesthetic, historic, social, associational and contextual significance”.
The South African Rugby Union appointed administrator Rian Oberholzer, in a very frank media briefing last month, made it clear there are debts to be paid to get the Western Province Rugby Union back in the black.
If the stadium is not sold to repay those debts – including the +-ZAR200-million owed to the Flyt/Dreamworld property group which holds bonds on all WPRFU properties – there is NO future for Western Province and the Stormers.
“What are the consequences of a successful heritage application?” Oberholzer asked at his media briefing
“It will absolutely mean the end of the Western Province Rugby Football Union as we know it,” he added.
“There is an outstanding amount of money received by the WPRFU from Flyt/Dreamworld that needs to be repaid.
“If Newlands cannot be sold, where will that money come from?
“That is the one very important issue.
“It will affect not only the WPRFU but obviously the company [Western Province Professional Rugby] and the Stormers.”
Since Western Province and the Stormers teams started a new era with the Cape Town Stadium as their home base in 2021, Oberholzer has been hard at work trying to finalise the sale of Newlands Stadium – which was one of the major tasks assigned to him when the union was placed under administration in October 2021.
Some headway was made in February last year when the stadium was placed on the market in a sealed bidding process.
However, Claassen threw a spanner in the works when he launched his bid to have the stadium declared a heritage site
@king365ed
@rugby365com
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