Saints hit out at Morrisons’ alleged ‘smear campaign’ over stadium plan

May 20 2008 by Ben Schofield, Liverpool Daily Post

THE Saints lashed out at Morrisons yesterday, after an alleged “smear campaign” by the supermarket against plans for a new stadium in St Helens.

Letters sent by Morrisons to local households were branded “ignorant” and “arrogant” by St Helens Rugby League Club.

The supermarket referred to the joint Saints-Tesco scheme to build a new Tesco store and an 18,000-capacity stadium, the club claims.

Morrisons, who have two stores in the town, say the plans violate planning rules for the site because the land is not a retail-designated plot.

The £75m scheme will see the Saints move to a former United Glass site, on Peasley Cross Lane.

In the letters, Morrisons claimed the plan is flawed because the club has not exhausted efforts to develop its present home. It is alleged it also sought to undermine claims made by the club say-ing they could lose their lic-ence to play top flight rugby if they stay at Knowsley Road.

St Helens say these claims and others by Morrisons are untrue and are driven by commercial motivations.

In a statement online, the club said the letters also attacked Saints chairman Eamonn McManus for not in-vesting in the club, saying it was not spending money on new players.

The club was alerted to the letters by fans angry at receiving slurs against a scheme they support. The Saints statement continued: “St Helens Rugby League Club fully agree with the outrage expressed by the recipients of the letters.

“The statements by Morri-sons, in addition to being fun-damentally wrong and misleading, are utterly irrel-evant to the planning appli-cation. We can only conclude they are designed to distract the public’s attention from the obvious and clear reason for their planning objection, namely to protect their exist-ing dominant supermarket interests in St Helens.

“The level of ignorance displayed by Morrisons to the public have only been exceed-ed in their arrogance in assuming the public will be imbecilic enough to believe any aspect of their crude and ill-founded smear campaign.”

St Helens councillors will today decide whether to approve the scheme.

A spokesperson for Morrisons said: “This isn’t a commercial objection. The development plans break the planning rules for the site.”

benschofield