MCC's new debentures scheme to help fund further ground improvements at Lord's

Date released: 3 November 2006

• Improvements to take MCC investment past £75 million-mark

• State-of-the-art scoreboards and replay screens planned for 2008 season

• Club aiming to achieve Cowdrey's capacity goal

Marylebone Cricket Club is to launch a new debenture scheme to help fund another ambitious series of ground improvements at Lord's.

The new debentures, covering some of the best seats at Lord's (in the Upper Tiers of the Grand Stand and Mound Stand), will be priced at between £8,000 and £12,000 each. They will give their holders a range of benefits including, first and foremost, the right to purchase tickets to 'the home of cricket' for eight seasons - from 2007 until 2014.

The Club plans to use the proceeds to help fund a fresh series of projects designed to ensure that Lord's remains not merely world-famous but genuinely world-class.

Since its bicentenary, in 1987, MCC has already spent over £50 million on improving Lord's, through projects including the construction of the NatWest Media Centre and MCC's Indoor Cricket School.

The new debentures - essentially long term, non-interest bearing loans to MCC, re-payable after 75 years - should help the Club take its investment in Lord's to over £75 million.

Planned improvements already include the installation of three new, state-of-the-art combined scoreboards and replay screens (at a likely cost of £2.75 million) plus the refurbishment of the award-winning Mound Stand (following the installation, last winter, of its new 'tented' roof).

It is intended that both these projects will be completed well before the summer of 2012 - when Lord's is set to host the archery competition in the Olympic Games. Indeed, MCC is aiming to install the combined scoreboards and replay screens in time for the 2008 cricket season.

The Club is also aiming to increase the capacity of Lord's to: ensure that it can accommodate more spectators on major matchdays; enhance its ability to retain and attract major matches; and return its capacity to the level last experienced when several thousand spectators could be accommodated between the boundary rope and the perimeter fencing.

Detailed studies, aimed at identifying options for achieving this objective, remain on-going. But the Club's Committee, Treasurer and Trustees are united in believing that the Ground's capacity should be returned to around its former level.

The All-England Club and the Rugby Football Union have used debenture schemes to fund enormous improvements at Wimbledon and Twickenham, respectively. MCC believes that its new debentures can, similarly, play a key role in enabling the Club to achieve its long-held capacity goal. (The new debentures will begin in 2007 - twenty years after Colin Cowdrey, then MCC's President, made the case, during the Club's bicentenary, for Lord's to have an appreciably higher capacity.)

As usual, any major development projects at Lord's would require the approval of the Club's Committee, Trustees and Members. They would also be preceded by extensive consultation with local stakeholders such as the "Local to Lord's" group, the St John's Wood Society and local residents' associations. Planning consent would also be required from the relevant local authority - Westminster City Council which, like MCC, is keen for a strategic Lord's masterplan to be prepared, to give the greatest possible coherence to all future developments and redevelopments at the ground.

MCC's new debenture initiative will replace the existing debenture schemes, covering parts of the Mound Stand and Grand Stand, which are due to expire before the start of next season.

The first option to buy the new debentures will be given to subscribers to the existing Mound Stand debenture scheme - to whom the Club is writing today - as required under its terms and conditions. Any remaining debentures will then be offered to MCC Members and Candidates, whose subscriptions and registration fees have played crucial roles in funding recent improvements at Lord's, followed by members of the wider public and the business community.

The Club intends to operate a 'white market' for certain major matchdays. This will provide an opportunity for debenture-holders to sell their ticket rights back to MCC, subject to demand, at levels which will be set by the Club prior to each season. This is designed to maximise match attendances and minimise the number of tickets falling into the hands of touts.

Full explanatory information will be made available, later this month, via a debenture brochure.

All enquiries relating to the new debentures should be e-mailed to: debentures@mcc.org.uk.