The last I heard (a few years back, admittedly), Peel Holdings had no interest in a football stadium being part of their planned development.

If I ran peel holdings I would want convincing on football clubs as well. Liverpool £40m loss, the madness continues.

The Kings Dock would've been ideal but a certain chairman messed that one up, as well, didn't he?

Surely to God, this opportunity cannot have missed those in charge at Everton. It is a major development, will have to have the infrastructure, trains, roads, buses, will be modern and I assume a nice area, the retail subsidy must be there, or whatever it is called, it is within the city limits.

Please, please help me understand why we would not, are not, if we are not, pursuing this opportunity.

Ian, because our club are run by Bungle and Zippy.

Ian (524)

I am no fan of our board, especially their track record on the ground move/redevelopment issue.

However there was nothing to follow up here, there was no opportunity. Any chance of a development of this nature was KO'd by Peel a good while ago as Lyndon indicates.

Leasing a stadium would mean paying a substantial sum every match to a "landlord". Also, if Peel were to build this stadium, to whose specification would it be built? Would they build secondary revenue items like bars/cafes/merch stalls in? If so, who would operate and retain the margins on that? What about other events at the stadium (such as concerts too big for the Echo Arena)?

I'm not sure what our current operating expenses are for Goodison, but I imagine the cost of leasing a stadium would be multiples of that and in the long run an unmitigated financial disaster. Therefore I expect this current board is already in the process of investigating it!

I read on here a while back a snippet from another user who said that Peel would consider it, but not with the current owners. Basically after the Kings Dock fiasco (and subsequent episodes) the incumbents have, rightly or wrongly, earned themselves a reputation of being unable to deliver. Peel is a privately held organisation, and is well within their rights to choose their project partners very carefully.

Would be lovely if a deal could be struck - don't see it happening though.
Peel Park - has a certain ring to it! Pity.

During the Kirkby debate much assistance was promised by Liverpool City Council in order to keep the club in the city. As I and others predicted at the time once Kirkby was eliminated this assistance never materialised.

Maybe the time is right for LCC to put their promise into action. I appreciate it was a different party in power then but that shouldn't matter. In the current economic climate I wouldn't expect financial assistance but perhaps a little gentle leaning on Peel could be helpful. I don't see much of a problem with an initial lease with an option to buy once we've won the Champions League a few times!

Rory (528) I object to you suggesting that the people who run our club are like Bungle and Zippy. This sort of low brow inane comment only does harm to those whose reputations have already, unjustifiably, taken many knocks over the years.

Any more of these scurrilous suggestions and you will be hearing from Geoffrey's lawyers.

Dave #559, what do people really expect LCC to deliver if EFC are potless? In these days of austerity I'm sure even Everton fans living in Liverpool borough would be uneasy at significant sums of public funds being used on yet another pipe dream.

Kings Dock was slightly different as there was a large contribution of EU Objective 1 funding. Sadly with the expansion of the EU that ship has sailed.

EU money is still available for Liverpool, albeit not in the same quantities as before. However, to lever in public funds, EFC would have to be in with a partner.

At Kings Dock, the City was a partner in terms of major events – thus the stadium was a re-vamped version of Cardiff's Millennium stadium, with a sliding roof and also a sliding pitch. A later ambitious proposal for Clarence Dock took the form of a shared stadium (with LFC and the City) with twin sliding pitches, each at the centre of respective red and blue commercial zones; Peel may once have been interested in an upmarket shared stadium, but things have now moved on.

The current best bet is still the 'Football Quarter', with the 'shared' Stanley Park infrastructure (for transport, events, tourism and fanzone), being developed through a multi-agency partnership. and the two football grounds both being expanded incrementally on their present sites (each incorporating a pair of new stands to reach a 60,000 capacity in due course).

Rory Slingo (#528),

Is this the rainbow alliance I've been reading about?

Even in these times of austerity LCC are assisting Liverpool as they have a plan, something tangible the council can get behind.

We, on the other hand..........

A club, or rather a board, that refuses to help itself and wont even entertain other avenues for a ground move and redevelopment aside from the one they are fixated with deserve very little sympathy.

Unfortunately, its the club that suffers.

This issue has gone too far now, its pathetic and the issue just meanders along. What exactly is going on? Still looking at sites? How? We've been assessing them for about 20 years!! Somehow the board need pressurising on this. Its a vital issue, critical to the survival of the club in the top league, never mind trying to break the big four which is virtually impossible with our wage bill and squad size.

The club will not remain in the top league if we remain at Goodison in its present state or if we do not get a workable ground move. Other clubs develop and grow. We run to stand still.

Remain as we are and we are ultimately doomed to certain relegation at some point. The club cannot grow any further, its compromised. We run the smallest squad in the league. Matchday revenue is non existent compared to other clubs.

We are killing ourselves.

The issue needs highlighting by fan groups or the local press(ha!) the club needs forcing.

I won't hold my breath.

Am I getting overexcited here about LFCs debts and they go into financial meltdown again? Oh please lord make it happen! USA! USA!! USA!!!

Or will somebody on a camel ride in pulling a lorry load of money and bail them out? I bet it's the latter...

I know little of these plans... but if they've reached Govt approval stage then the ship sailed a long time ago.

Matt Traynor

Sorry Matt I didn't realise you had difficulty reading. If you read my post you will hopefully note (this time) that I specifically stated that in the present economic climate I (or even we?) would not expect financial assistance but rather a little pressure on Peel to at least be open to the idea.

I don't think I could have written it any clearer than that quite frankly!

I can`t understand our local rivals` present financial embarrassment. Isn`t selling your club meant to be the answer to everything? They`ve changed owners twice since Bill`s lot bought Everton and they are still in deep shit.......

And below us in the table!

Richard, they are in no danger whatsoever, they have a fan base that demands that the club attempts to move forward and unfortunately there will be many more people interested in rescuing them if they do hit the rocks.

Everton, on the other hand, just stagnate year after year with little or no attempt to address the deep-rooted problems that lie just beneath the surface. Nobody is prepared to rescue Everton from within the club so it is unlikely that anyone will do so from the outside.

I wouldn't bet my mortgage that they will still be beneath us come season's end, but we do live in hope.

Patrick if we are stagnating year upon year why does the value of the playing squad keep increasing? If Liverpool's fanbase is the be all and end all then why have they dropped from being certain top 4 candidates to scrapping aorund with us for 7th despite spending something close to half a billion since H&G took them over for the first time?

The Peel Holdings development has been heavily supported by Lord Mayor for Liverpool - Joe Anderson. As many of you will know, Joe is a massive match going Evertonian and was opposed to the doomed destination Kirkby project. I hazard a guess that if Peel Holdings were receptive to the possibility of a football stadium being part of their proposals that Joe would have been having a word regarding the merits of Everton. My fear is that the current incumbents at Everton have stopped talking to LCC regarding alternatives, after all I suspect a bitter taste in the mouth probably still exists regarding DK.

If Everton cannot come up with any vision at all for the future regarding either the redevelopment of Goodison Park or an alternative plan we are looking at many more years of stagnation. Elstone promised in the wake of DK that Everton would resolve to heal the wounds and divisions that the project had created and work towards a more sustainable future; two years on and such statements smack of empty promises and rhetoric.

James Martin

The value of the squad may rise due to the manager? What has he got to do with planning for the future of the clubs infrastructure?

Liverpool have an enormous waiting for season tickets and therefore massive untapped matchday revenue.

They have recently been mismanaged at board level, welcome to our world folks, and have nearly managed to make as much of a pigs ear of sorting a new ground/redevelopment as we have. Their match going fanbase, global appeal and the commercial possibilities of it mean that they will invariably find a taker for the club as it can be powerfully driven forward due to the untapped potential of a new ground, increase in revenue etc.

Both Merseyside clubs were asleep at the wheel as football changed in the early to mid 90s. Liverpool certainly haven't harnessed their potential but at least they managed to develop 3 sides of their ground. We fell into a coma and still haven't woken up.

If Liverpool achieve their redevelopment with 60k seats, all the new corporate and the revenue that will generate its game over and we may as well be a one club city.

We are slowly writing ourselves into the history books. We have got to do something.

James,

The squad size and value is a direct result of BK and the board finding/borrowing money to enhance the playing staff to ward off the growing resentment towards Kirkby. From the moment that the Kirkby project was rejected, very little if any money has been spent on the team.

That was a gamble that failed to pay off the way that the directors had hoped it would. But now we have very little money to invest in the playing staff and no plan whatsoever to improve facilities at Goodison or elsewhere. If BK keeps waiting for a 'sugar daddy' to appear from nowhere we will start to fall down the league at an alarming rate. It will come to a point where the Board will be unable to give the club away, never mind sell it on for their own financial gain.

The other lot were looking for a short-cut to CL and got their fingers burnt; we are looking to find money to ensure that our place in the top flight doesn't come under threat. You also have to remember that West Ham, QPR and Reading have greater potential over the long-term than Everton do at this moment in time. Once Felli and Baines are sold... that's it! We have nobody else that will raise oodles of cash to replenish the squad.

The board are guilty of putting their own interests ahead of the club's and many of us will never ever forgive them for that.

Vision........

Once Golden and now a lack of. Let's think for a minute. What do we need as a football club? OK, that was very general and a multitude of responses I am sure you are dying to give me so I'll answer the question: We need an improved/new stadium; "No shit, Sherlock!" I hear you say. We have no money I hear you say!

Okay, so how are the club going to deliver it? Well it's very clear they are unwilling to do it on their own. So who are they going to get to help them? No real help from LCC... although this is part the clubs fault too; no real investment in infrastructure, ie, third party retail units. No suitable sites. Christ, we're fooked aren't we?

But... are we? Does the club really have no-one to partner with? I think they do. You and me.We are the club's partners in the absence of any commercial partner wanting to do it. Why? Because we have to be it.

The plan! Well that's a whole different ball game... but here's the crux of the idea: the fans form a co-op, it's aim to provide funds to help the club redevelop and extend the capacity of Goodison Park. You would be able to contribute as much as you can and you would be able to contribute more than once! If 15,000 of us contributed the equivalent of £500 each, then we've raised £7.5M. That's more than enough to make the club sit up and take notice.

However, the relationship between the fans and the club needs smoothing over. There needs to be an agreement on how the club would contribute. What should happen if eventually we redevelop a stand or two at Goodison (not with the £7.5M but after repeated contributions set to a plan).

Should the club be sold after any redevelopment, how does the fund ensure that the co-op retains a decent return on investment and whether the current board should benefit financially from it? How do we agree that? WE are realistically the club's only commercial partner! Thinking outside of the box is what is required here.

John although your 'vision' has merit, the question that I am sitting here asking is: Why should hard-up match going fans, or fans from overseas who cannot attend Goodison, be expected to cough up money for such a proposal when there are multi-millionaire shareholders on Everton's board who have contributed zilch other than for the shares that they have bought and are evidently looking for an obscene return on?

This is the link to a post I put up on 3/3/12 about this subject when a ex planner I know told me of this rumour a

http://www.toffeeweb.com/season/11-12/comment/mailbag/20633.html

Looks like Peel Holdings want to turn it into skyscraper city. This is a massive opportunity that should be looked into, the right location comes up (it seems) once every 10-20 years. I know though, that there is no chance with this board in control.

Paul Ellam #557. There's a Peel Park in Salford, now incorporated within the campus of Salford University.

"Opened in August 1846 and located next to the University of Salford, Peel Park is quite possibly the world's first official public park."

http://www.salford.gov.uk/peelpark.htm

Hello, John. The hard bit is delivering the vision whilst appealing to all stakeholders, like Peter mentions.

Love it, John and I`ll start saving my pennies. But I don`t think the club`s owners would welcome that approach any more than any other ideas that have been put to them.

`They are totally moribund, survival is all they aspire to. Goodison will be falling down before they invest a penny in it although they`ll expect the council to do so. We shall end up like Charlton in the 80s with two sides of the ground condemned as unfit.` — Not my words but those of an Evertonian councillor close to what`s gone on.

My fear is that Moyes leaving will hasten the rot as a new `Lambert figure` oversees relegation to the Football League. Then lack of facilities will hardly be the problem.

ps: What happened to optimism?

A new football stadium, or two, would make perfect sense when renovating the derelict wasteland that the North Docks have become. Such an enterprise(s) would bring countless thousand of supporters and their wallets to the area – EVERY weekend if there were two grounds or a SHARED ground. Couple that with some farsighted travel networks, maybe a tram system linking the whole area to the Pier Head or maybe a monorail along the path of the old "Dockers Umbrella" and Motorway connections to the Tunnel, the East Lancs Rd and the Motorways. But Everton FC, the RS and Liverpool City Council don't do farsighted, do they. So who would work with Peel Holdings to persuade them?

EFC have been speaking to Peel, LCC and Sefton and the issue is more to do with funding than the actual stadium. If Peel did offer us a location what would KEIOC position be on this as lots of the sites available are in Bootle which is part of Sefton council not LCC, could we really move that far away!!! Considering Sefton is just a mile or less from GP surely not we would have another riot!!

Everton do need a new ground. Goodison is terrible now, but where do we get the money from to build one? — that's the multi-million dollar question!

Alan,
You're being a bit mischievous there. It has never necessarily been about boundaries (although the resultant change in perception may be important in any two-club city), it has always been more about basic logistics, about distances from the centre of the conurbation and all the public transport hubs and routes and capacities. Speke (inside the boundary) for instance would've met a similar response from KEIOC, for all the same reasons as Kirkby. But of course you knew this already.

For your information though, KEIOC approached Peel at the time of DK, as a stadium option had been mentioned as a development catalyst for the Liverpool Waters scheme (a strategy used at several other similar sites worldwide). This is a far more central area than Bootle or even Walton, so it more than satisfies several key logistic criteria.

I don't believe there has ever been serious mention of the more Northern Docks which are still working docks that are due to be expanded. The Peel connection was always in connection with the central docks and the major development there.

When did KEIOC incite a riot? I must've missed that one. I do however remember them wiping the floor with the best that Tesco, Knowsley Council and EFC and their combined wealth could offer at the public inquiry... when the much vaunted merits of the out-of-town stadium were systematically ripped apart, as the hurriedly revised transport plan lay in tatters. At least the club now know that whichever site is eventually chosen it will attract similar scrutiny..... so perhaps they wont be inclined to chase white elephants, wasting time and funds we cant really afford.

David Moyes's side should've been playing at the Kings Dock or in a much improved GP for years now, how much greater would his achievements have been, and how much more solid would our future be now?..... Or do you feel that its KEIOC's fault that the club have failed repeatedly when practically EVERY other club have delivered? KEIOC are only the messengers and they have been proven correct several times over!!

Hi Tom, yes I was being flippant simply because the name KEIOC in its own right restricts the options. I argued at the time of DK that if Bootle stadium was chosen it wouldn’t be acceptable as it's in Sefton yet we park our cars there on match days so I was making a geographical observation to the people that moan about DK location.

Kings Dock had far worse implications to EFC and I’m afraid due to lack of funds we will not be able to match that opportunity. If I remember, Switch Island was offered in the past and Peel own that land too.

We have other options along Regent Road but due to the buildings listings and dock re-locations it’s not impossible to create but probably unlikely as that sort of vision needs serious investors and an open quorum representing all sides and I’m afraid we aren’t in that position until the club is sold.

Alan,

From what I recall, it wasn't moving outside the Council boundary that was the issue, but moving 9 miles from the City Centre to basically the middle of nowhere, plus the crap (open corners, executive boxes at both ends cutting any 'Street End' area in half, searchlights, etc, etc) design and abysmal transport links (although Wyness suggested we could cycle there, ha ha!) that were the issues.

Man United play in Salford, not Manchester, but the Council does not matter as it's close enough to the city centre to not be marginalised. To just about everybody, Bootle is part of Liverpool. Kirkby is too, but too far out from the city centre..

We have to think Greater Liverpool. Sefton council will wither away over the next 20 years and the elected Mayor concept will contribute to that. The key site is next to Bankhall station.

Alan,
The main point was always that any site will need massive public transport provision. Walton lies at the confluence of many major bus/road/rail routes, and is only 2 miles from the city-centre. Ideally if we are to move, it probably needs to be closer to the centre than away from it.

The KEIOC name hardly limits the options.... it was the name given to a protest group opposed to an out of town stadium...... that's all! Their fears and reservations have all long-since been fully vindicated, so I'm not sure that their name is the pressing issue to be honest.