French: No regrets about moving into modern age

Jun 29 2007 by Larry Neild, Liverpool Daily Post

ST HELENS legend Ray French has given his seal of approval to plans for a £25million stadium that will see St Helens play in a home fit for the 21st century.

The new stadium, to be built in the shape of a rugby ball, will replace the old Knowsley Road home of the Saints where French played in the 1960s, and as captain in 1968.

The ground will be built alongside a 140,000 sq ft Tesco Extra, creating hundreds of jobs and reclaiming a contaminated site which once housed the massive United Glass factory.

It has been estimated the project in total will create 1,400 jobs.

A planning application has been submitted to the council today for the development, with work likely to start next year and the stadium opened in 2010.

It is likely the huge Tesco will open earlier.

St Helens Council’s cabinet is backing the project with £6m – £2m a year spread over three years.

But chief executive Carole Hudson says the bill will not fall on the heads of council tax payers. Instead money gathered from the sale of land and assets will be used to fund the council’s contribution.

In return the council has negotiated an extensive free-use deal of the stadium for local community activities, and there will be an on-site youth and community centre.

The scheme is being promoted by the club, who will own the stadium, the council, Tesco and developer and landowner the locally-based Langtree Group, the company behind the plans to redevelop Liverpool’s International Garden Festival Site.

The club itself will raise £14m from the sale of its 116-year-old ground to Taylor Woodrow for a big housing scheme.

The stadium will be built alongside the link road and is likely to become an iconic landmark on the town’s skyline.

It will have easy access to the M62, a boost for the number of Liverpool-based season ticket holders which stands at a record level.

A three-week long public exhibition is to open at St Helens Town Hall from Monday to enable local residents the chance to view the proposals and make their own comments.

French said: “This is fantastic for St Helens and for rugby league.

“It will be a stadium able to meet the growing aspirations of a fantastic world-class rugby league team.

“There will be no regrets leaving Knowsley Road. More and more we have to look to the 21st century.”