Stadium expansion and the problems with it

I think LFC and the council are working on it together, but as you say to blame the club will generate a lot more headlines. I think the council are probably waiting on the redevelopment of the stadium before regenerating surely?

More media nonsense..

Not sure you can just dismiss it as media nonsense honest, there's obviously a basis for it..

Blaming the club for mainly actions of private landlords. How can they claim that the club used 3rd parties to buy up houses when it's clearly private landlords buying up properties to sell for higher prices at a later date?

Whoever wrote that doesn't know how the housing market works..

I don't see how the club would buy up houses to create false market when they don't need them. That'd be like wasting money when they could easily just pay generous or give little incentives to buy up houses that are needed.

Don't think the council would let then anyway..

'Alongside Liverpool football club, family homes and private landlords, the main other property owner was Your Housing, a large group of housing associations, then called Arena. It also began to leave properties "tinned up" – 265 were empty in the wider Anfield area by 2011. '

'The club, with the council and Arena, had produced Anfield Plus, a plan to demolish both rows of houses on Lothair Road, the one on Alroy Road backing on to Lothair, and those on Anfield Road, for two enlarged stands.'

I took it to mean that this Arena company was the 3rd party and that they obviously had struck a deal with LFC to buy houses then leave them presumably on the understanding that LFC would make them a profit of doing so?

Apparently they needed at least 1800 houses, I can see how it would makes economic sense to create this false market. I'm not trying to accuse them of that, I think they may have bought them trying to prepare for the expansion and like kneerash says the changes of owner/regime stymied this, creating what we see today.

If you bought the premises with a view to a new Anfield, but that has not happened as planned (economic situation of late etc) , then fair enough.

I don't think they went out to create this false market.

In the late 90s the plan was to redevelop and extend Anfield, so it would make sense to buy properties where they could. Reduce the need to compensate people and reduce the amount of households they would need to consult with. In this sense the club have done nothing wrong.

What the article doesn't provide is Liverpool City Council's meandering throughout the last 15 years or so. Regardless of whether LFC made their plans public at the time (in 1999) the council refused to give LFC the permission to extend Anfield and pushed for the Stanley Park stadium.

This left LFC in an awkward position, the need to expand the stadium, but no permission to extend. Their only option became the Stanley Park scheme, which was the Council's preferred scheme because it meant that LFC would contribute towards the regeneration scheme, not only paying for the new stadium and surrounding areas, but the funding for Anfield Plaza (which would have been built in place of Anfield) would only have been made available if a new stadium was built.

A lot of the blame has to be placesd on Liverpool Council for their inability to make decisions. If you look at the timeline since 1999, the council refused planning for an extension and redevelopment,w hcih woudl have regenerated the area in the early 2000s, they pushed the for the Stanley Park scheme, they also pushed a joint owenership/shared stadium scheme between Liverpool and Everton. They couldn't make their own minds up which has meant that for 15 years nothing has happened, the area has worsened. Its easy now to blame the club for the dereliction of the area but the council are as much to blame, if not more so.

Good comment FJM