Anfield owners give date for revised stadium plans

Jul 9 2007 by Jessica Shaughnessy, Liverpool Daily Post

LIVERPOOL FC’s American owners have reaffirmed their plans to make the club’s new stadium the biggest Premiership ground in the country.

Tom Hicks and George Gillett revealed they will submit a revised plan to Liverpool City Council on July 25. It is the first time supporters have been given a concrete time-scale.

The proposals will detail designs for a spectacular 60,000 capacity stadium that could eventually be expanded to host almost 80,000.

This would make Liverpool’s new ground bigger than Manchester United’s stadium at Old Trafford, which is currently British football’s largest.

“The city council’s planners will receive the final plans on July 25,” said Hicks.

“The initial capacity will be the 60,000 previously approved, but the design will accommodate an eventual capacity in the high seventies.”

Soon after their take-over earlier this year, the billionaires ordered a review of the plans for the Stanley Park stadium.

They made the plans for the club’s new home, which will be up and running in 2010, their top priority.

The Daily Post has reported closely on how the pair were always keen to look into ways of increasing the 61,000 capacity in the current proposals.

To completely overhaul the plans and transform the designs into an 80,000 seater-stadium would mean massive delays.

The project team would have to undergo another round of extensive environmental impact assessments, which could take up to a year to complete.

It is hoped that by altering the current plans, with the potential to extend seating capacity once it is completed, the club could by-pass this lengthy and costly process.

But the altered designs are understood to be drastically different in aesthetic terms from the originals. The Kop is believed to be a key feature, but it will be raised and very steep, in order to fit in more rows.

The foundations of the stadium will be lowered to enable the club to build on top of it when required.

There was a mixed response to the news on Liverpool supporters’ internet forums yesterday.

Many fans were trawling websites in search of an elusive picture of the new plans.

Images have been posted on several sites in recent weeks, but none have been confirmed as the true designs and the pictures have all been removed shortly afterwards, adding to the suspense before the plans are officially unveiled.

In a string of discussion threads, fans speculated yesterday about the cost of tickets for the new stadium. But there was an overriding support for building it as big as possible to enable more fans to get into games.

Last night Les Lawson, secretary of the Merseyside branch of the Official LFC Supporters Club, welcomed the plans.

He said: “The current stadium fits 45,000. We have 30,000 season ticket holders and a waiting list of 53,000.

“A stadium with the capacity to fit more and more of these people in is just what the club needs.

“If we are going to rebuild, we need to get it right.”

jessicashaughnessy@dailypost.co.uk