Stanley Park to Remain Empty

I don't know if Liverpool City Council or Liverpool Football Club are living in the land of make believe but here is an excerpt from the minutes of a meeting that took place between the Spirit of Shankly and Christian Purslow. Christian's answers are in Italics.

Liverpool City Council recently announced that the Club had said that building work on the stadium would start in April. Was it true that you said this to Liverpool City Council? What form will such "building work" take? Is it just enabling works and then a half or would a start mean an uninterrupted development - if so what would be proposed opening date for the new stadium?

It is not true that we said work would start in April. Liverpool Football Club and Everton Football Club supported the city in the World Cup bid. When asked by Lord Mawwhinney about the stadium being built. I said there was investment interest and talks with banks on the financing of a stadium. Investment has to happen for the stadium to start, and we expect that around Easter time.

If we get the investment we can look at further investment to start the stadium work. How the City Council interpreted this as starting work in April I don't know you will have to ask them.

It appears that Christian Purslow is now saying that the club did not say that they would categorically start the rebuild in April and are placing the blame on Liverpool City Council for letting the media get hold of the information. My question here is, why did the club not step in and ask the Liverpool Echo to withdraw the story. We now have a situation where supporters like myself have had yet another glimmer of hope snatched away yet again.

I was actually under the impression that a new investor was going to be announced in the coming months. Tom Hicks arrived in Liverpool last weekend for what I understood were to be talks - if it was not to discuss the future of Rafa Benitez , then I guess he must have been meeting possible investors. When I received tonight's news, I will admit to thinking that yet another set of people had studied the finances and thought - NO WAY.

Whilst discussing the prospect of a new stadium, several things including the way it would be financed were bought up.
How will the New Stadium Financed?

A combination of a long term mortgage, equity, and using the reduction in interest repayments will be available for a stadium as the debt is reduced

My query here is, who would give the club a long term mortgage considering the financial problems it has at the moment. What reduction in interest repayments - unless a new investor is found - these are going to go on for years and will obviously adjust each time there is a base rate increase etc. The other problem of course is that unless Tom Hicks and George Gillett give us some of the money they have made from their other interests, our debts are simply not going to be reduced.

Any Investment of £100 million will have to then be followed by support in financing the stadium. There is a six to nine month process before stadium work can start, tendering and legal processes. If investment comes in April, we are working upon an opening date for the new stadium of Summer 2014. I doubt work will start this year but I would expect it to start at some point in the next twelve months.

I would have thought that the tendering and legal processes were already done before Tom Hicks and George Gillett pulled the plug on the first part of the dream. If not then we certainly did have the wool pulled over our eyes. Saying that though, I guess a new investor will want new paperwork drawn up with his/her signatures on it. Being the daughter of someone who worked in the building trade - a stadium as good as Liverpool Football Club need - it will take at least five years to build so summer 2014 is a date that I believe is a very far-fetched estimate.

Our approach is to cost and time a stadium build by balancing the extra costs on a quick build to Rolls Royce standards, which is the expensive option as opposed to a longer build to VW standards where the costs can be less. We will have to look at both and decide which is the best way to go?

As I said above, to build a stadium quickly could result in repairs and alterations being made a lot quicker than would otherwise have been necessary. For the amount of money that it will cost, it needs to be done properly and hopefully by a British construction company such as Taylor Woodrow.

The meeting then turned to perhaps a refurbishment of the current Anfield instead.
If the new stadium is not being started in April has the current owner and senior management regime ever considered a redevelopment of Anfield, something which the previous regime would not consider despite there being compelling arguments that it could supply the size of a stadium needed, with the disruption that has been suggested as a major reason why a redevelopment cannot work?

Refurbishment will not happen. We would be playing in front of two or two and a half stands for a few seasons, and the fans would not want that. There would also be a great loss of revenue.

This I totally agree with. Even if one stand was redeveloped at a time - another would have to be shut to allow the builders to work undisturbed. Of course there are also the residents of Anfield to consider and it would cause far too much disruption to such a small area - that I believe is why moving onto Stanley Park was the obvious answer.
When asked if the Club would be prepared to meet other parties who had done their own work on a different proposal, Christian's reply was

We have a lot on our plate, and an excellent team looking at all the options.

Every Liverpool supporter in the world knows that the club has a lot on its plate, most of which as we all know could have been avoided. I am sure though that it would not harm someone from the club to have a look at an independent proposal - you never know it might just turn out to be the right one.

The question then arose about how much the club had already spent on researching the new stadium, architects and planners.

Substantial sums were spent in the period up to the new stadium getting full planning permission and this is an asset which will be valuable when we get the project restarted.

Now this is where I get angry. When Tom Hicks and George Gillett took over the club, surely they had to prove that the funds were there to start the re-build, in fact, if I remember rightly, we were told a spade would be in the ground within six weeks. To have been able to say that - the first payment installments must have been made - the question here is, why was the cash withdrawn or did it ever exist - another dream I guess.

It appears that the stadium is still a long drawn out dream until new investment can be found. I would love to say that I hope it is just around the corner, but to be honest, I just don't think it is going to happen for a long time. This country is just coming out of recession so we are told, so no businessman or indeed a consortium are going to risk parting with their cash yet. I know George Gillett has been looking to the Middle East for investment, but unfortunately they themselves have now entered a recession and even the richest men in the world are running scared at the moment.

I suppose I could start doing the Euro Lottery and perhaps hitting the jackpot. I would then give all my winnings to my beloved club - You know that is something worth thinking about - it would then be in the hands of a true Liverpool Supporter and I would ensure that the clubs supporters had a say in how the club was run.

Several weeks ago, Christian Purslow said that the club wanted to be more open with its supporters. I just wish that could be put into place. A lot of people do not read what is condensed and put onto the website. We need to have a statement of intent (if that is the right word) printed every week and made available at newsagents at a small cost. I know I would certainly pay for it. It would stop all the rumours and certain members of the media printing stories that turn out to be a load of rubbish - hence the proposed date of the rebuild this year.

Although at this point in time, it appears the supporter has been kidded along yet again, the new stadium is and will remain a pipe dream for some time yet.