We have identified a site

Just like reading Blake.

300 year lease by all accounts.

A timely distraction from the trials and tribulations of our headbanger coach awaiting poetic justice. hope 20,000 isn't the limit for the site and it will be expandable to at least 30,000 (not that it will ever need to be).

Positive news. Still not sure that the site is ideal, but looks the only option given that redeveloping the Memorial Stadium would appear to not be economically viable.
Progress so far, as Blackadder would say: "we’ve advanced no further than an asthmatic ant with some very heavy shopping.’

Could we do away with the option of walking out on to the pitch without sinking into the mud beyond your ankles...⚽⚽

So we sell what we own to rent a place, isn’t this how all of our problems started ? Having said that, i am still very skeptical  of this and will believe it when im sat in it and watching a league game.
Absolutely awful place to plant a stadium, drive past there most day and the traffic can be diabolically bad if someone just parks up in a dodgy place. Would need a big amount of thought about getting fans to the ground. I really don’t like the idea of putting us there.
It would make people use the clubhouse there though as you’d have to have a brisk walk to get to a city centre pub and, no doubt, we would see some confrontations with our red cousins

I'm thinking it's good news as this is a necessary stage

The devil will, as always, be in the detail. The detail in this case being the carve-up of site revenues

So there will be a long game of hardball ahead

I'll be interested in what Swiss says (prima face, this delivers a rented stadium and a release from Wael's debt, which is 2 of the things he was looking for I think)

I think its a fantastic place to get to but then I live in Brislington... I've had to travel to Horfield for the past however long so its swings and roundabouts.

In all seriousness its a great site 10 minutes from the largest railway station in the South West and about 20 minutes from the centre which all of Bristols radial bus network essentially terminates at. I know some people will need to drive but we are moving away from single occupancy car journeys and the sooner you stop thinking via car the sooner you realise this is a well located site in the centre of Bristol.

Thats about all we know so far so apart from that, there aint any need to get chewed up by detail that isn't there - the club hasn't even commented!

Plus the microbreweries, the microbreweries... excellent pre match beer!

I also think it's good news.

But, as the OP points out, the timing of this announcement is highly convenient and the wording of the article is unusual so I hope someone hasn't jumped the gun. 

We now have confirmation from James Piercy (presumably under instruction from Wael) that the sale of the Mem to the developers will form part of the deal but no detail of how that will work. Will ownership of the land be transferred to the developers and it's value be incorporated into the rental agreement to give Rovers a lower rent ? Is this what "minimal yearly financial obligation"  means ?   Or is that strange declaration meant to try to reassure Gasheads who for years have been told "renting is bad" that now "renting is good" and the club will not be overstretching itself with rental payments ? 

If the cash generated from the sale of the land is not made available to Rovers there remains a question mark about how working capital is going to be funded because building the new business infrastructure and fitting out a 20 000 capacity stadium will be extremely costly ?  Those new revenue streams won't start spurting immediately and an awful lot of cash will be needed to "prime the pump". 

The main reason this is good news is that if the development goes ahead it will provide Rovers with a permanent modern home which is unlikely to be ever taken away. If an owner fails and runs out of money then, unlike now, an Administrator will be able to take over the business and find a new owner with relatively minor disruption to the football club. So assuming the "in principle" deal is finalised the next question will be whether Rovers can make it through the minimum four year period until the stadium is ready. 

With a new railway station being built for the new Bristol arena, I would of thought catching a train from there to temple meads would make travelling pretty easy for people from Patchway, Southmead Henbury etc areas.