Liverpool FC Forum

[Leonmc0708]

PROTESTERS against Liverpool Football Club's plans to relocate to a new stadium in Stanley Park yesterday handed in a 10,000-strong petition against the scheme.

Joe Kenny, chairman of the Anfield Regeneration Action Committee, wheeled in the weighty evidence to Millennium House, home of the city council planning department.

Council planners are due to consider LFC's 60,000-seat stadium plan later in the summer.

The arrival of the petition came just hours after the Daily Post revealed the view of senior Merseyside economist Peter Stoney that Stanley Park was the wrong location for Liverpool's new stadium.

Mr Stoney, research fellow at the University of Liverpool, said the Central Docks area was a more suitable location for the ground.

Both LFC and the city council have declined to comment on his view.

Last night Mr Kenny said: "Today the people of Anfield delivered over 10,000 individual objections as well as an official statement outlining the reasons why the city council must not approve Liverpool Football Club's planning application.

"The official letter carries over 100 planning objections. In the light of this, we expect Liverpool City Council to reject LFC's plans as they are in total contradiction with the council's own planning policy.

"If passed, Liverpool City Council would be acting illegally and the individual councillors could well be culpable.

"We would seek to have the councillors who vote through this application removed from office on the grounds that they would be acting ultra vires (beyond their powers)."

LFC ruled out 17 sites across Merseyside before deciding on Stanley Park as the location for its new stadium.

Individual reports, included in LFC's application, were drawn up on industrial parks, green spaces and former dockland areas, but all were rejected due to problems of size, transport access or because they were already earmarked for other projects.

This is a joke. The people of Anfield claim that this is not what they want. So am I to presume they are happy for the current stadium to be surrounded by what can only be described a slums. The houses around Anfield are mostly empty, so what are these people on about?

They are opposing the site of the new stadium? Why is it because they will no longer have a place to take their dogs for a sh*t or to dump their old wardrobes, matrices and general rubbish. These people make me SICK.

[Leonmc0708]

The Stanley Park site was selected from the following shortlist:

The alternative sites considered were:

1. Gilmoss: Peripheral location likely to increase traffic. Remainder of the site has been earmarked for industrial expansion.

2. Walton Hall Park: Good public transport, but unlikely to be made available by City Council.

3. Everton Park: Steeply rising land would need significant remodelling.

4. King's/Queen's Dock: Size inadequate. Designs could conflict with conservation areas.

5. Prescot Road: Currently used as a waste transfer site and unlikely to be made available.

6. John Moores and MTL site: Land already earmarked for development.

7. Wavertree Playground: Greenfield land unlikely to be made available.

8. Garden Festival site: Development would include greenfield land. Close to site of ecological importance. Access issues "insurmountable".

9. Speke northern airfield: Already a flagship business park.

10. Dunlop site in Speke: Held as expansion land for airport.

11. Dunningsbridge Road: Site has been bought by Ikea.

12. Stanley Park: Suitable for development and will act as a catalyst for regeneration in the local area.

13. Anfield: Surrounding land has various owners and is unlikely to be made available. Poor transport.

14. Stanley Dock: Involves demolition of listed buildings and heritage objections. Site too small, access poor.

15. Central Docks: Size of the stadium would dominate land. Poor transport.

16. Atlantic Industrial Estate: Site within strategic investment area. Sefton Council indicate opposition to the plans.

17. Garston Docks: Site not currently available.

18. Speke Garston: Site suitable but not currently available.

[Leonmc0708]

LIVERPOOL and Everton should share an iconic stadium on Liverpool's famous waterfront, a leading university economist has said in a report.

Peter Stoney, a University of Liverpool academic and lecturer, is calling for the stadium to be built on a brownfield site within the Central Docks system, not far from the Stanley Heritage Market.

He makes an economic case for the dockland site in preference to Liverpool FC's plans for a new stadium in Stanley Park.

Although his report proposes a stadium for Liverpool FC, he goes one stage further and says a shared ground with Everton would be even better for the city's economy.

It would, he says, be the UK's first shared ground and would enable both clubs to:

#)  play in a stadium with a world-class design;

#)  enable both clubs to share costs and overheads, guaranteeing affordable ticket prices;

#)  spend more money on their playing squads;

#)  become a major tourist attraction in its own right;

#)  provide a world-class facility for Capital of Culture events in 2008;

#)  Allow public funders to offer better support to a joint project of regional importance with major economic benefit.