Reds suffer defeat at committee
Liverpool Football Club must try again to win council backing as it looks to make permanent a road closure behind the expanded Anfield Road stand.
The application, which comes in tandem with a variation of planning conditions around summer events, sees LFC seeking to amend a legal agreement over the closure of Anfield Road. A planning committee today gave a “minded to refuse” verdict, in the face of officer recommendation. The proposals will return to committee soon.
Granted a temporary closure while construction work took place, the stretch of road has never been reopened. Now owned by LFC, it has been redesigned and realigned. While opponents accept match and event day closures, there has been and remains anger that the road remains closed at all times to vehicles.
A decision was deferred at June’s committee, with a site visit booked in for members immediately before today’s session.
An item that would ultimately take close to two hours to determine kicked off with Ryan & May’s Sam Ryan, the club’s planning advisor for 25 years, spelling out the benefits of the project.
Ryan pointed out the upsides of the attractive walking route right around the ground that is now in place, and was included within the spatial regeneration framework for the area – a programme that has also seen hefty investment in parks and housing.
Concerns raised by local ward councillors from the previous meeting were reiterated, and added to by the appearance – speaking as a resident rather than in any official capacity – of the MP for West Derby Ian Byrne, a dedicated Reds fan and the co-founder of Fans Supporting Foodbanks in 2015.
He said: “It is with a sense of sadness and betrayal that we are here today. We as a council and a city made a commitment to the residents of Anfield that this road would be reopened.”
Noting his disappointment at “listening to officers arguing for Liverpool FC”, Byrne continued that the area as a whole has a “terrible” history with LFC, noting that historically, “the list is endless” when it comes to the club pushing forward various expansion plans.
Byrne concluded: “We thought we were on the right path, and it has been a better relationship, but this will knock it back years.”
The case made by the club – and effectively endorsed by the council’s building control department in outlining the safety points, informing the officer recommendation to approve – leans heavily on safety and security concerns, referencing enhanced terror threat levels.
Both this argument and that of the “trip hazards” presented by a more traditional highway and pavement layout than the plaza-style space now in situ were greeted with some cynicism in the chamber.
Among those speaking was Cllr Billy Lake, who said: “I sat in the old Anfield Road stand for 20 years, was there for all the big games, and don’t recall the old road being a trip hazard at all.” Cllr Joe Hanson accused the club of being “completely disingenuous”.
Planning officer Felicity Collins and Andy Mollon, director of sustainable transport and highways at LCC, answered a series of questions as to the reasons for recommending approval.
The issue is an unusual one. This stretch of road is now privately held, by LFC, and redesigned in more of a plaza style than a through-route. The club cannot be compelled to rework it again, but seemingly will need to rethink things to resolve what has become a problem.
When committee chair Cllr Tom Cardwell moved to approve, in line with officer recommendation, a counter-motion to refuse was immediately raised by Cllr Declan Henry, seconded by Cllr Richard Kemp, who also successfully raised the point that city engineers should submit a report to cabinet regarding the highways issues.
Cllr Henry’s motion called for refusal on three grounds, relating to traffic flow, impact on residents’ amenity, and environmental nuisance. This carried the day.
Project documents can be viewed on the LCC planning portal, using the reference 24F/2963.
If Joe Hanson says it, it must be wrong.
By Anonymous
So a public road – an historic one no less – given over to private concern. Amazing one of the richest companies in the city can be allowed to exploit one of its poorest areas.
By Du Be Ous`
Open the road up again what’s next shutting walton breck road down the ground has gone to far taking every away from the residents
By Anonymous
This is going down particularly badly in north Dublin, let me tell you.
By St Domingo
Liverpool Football Club don’t give a dam about the residents of Anfield and think they are bigger than the law. This Road should be open immediately as the residents have suffered enough inconvenience.
By Anonymous
Temporarily doesn’t mean permanent. Typical bulky boy tactics from LFC.
By Anonymous
Area would be poorer still without the stadium being there. De be dous or whatever.
By Anonymous
But that map shows a parallel street only a cockstride away. Much ado about nowt?
By Nathaniel Arkwright
Not like Councillor Billy Lake to object to a planning application ( joke)…..he probably wishes the old stands were still there with corrugated iron roofs. Whatever, Liverpool’s mistake was not to take up the offer of building on the Stanley Park car park, as this would’ve given them ample room to build a massive stadium of at least 75,000.
However even then the locals complained about the loss of amenity, as they have done now. If Liverpool FC is to be sold to mega rich owners they will have to decide whether to remain at Anfield,or not, to fulfill any ambitions as there will be no guarantee of further expansion to 70,000 even.
The MP and the councillors need to realise that Liverpool is a global club, bringing thousands of visitors into the city and it needs to be allowed to expand as a club financially and physically, and if the MP and councillors don’t like that they should find another club to support.
By Anonymous
Buy the houses up down Skerries and build the SKD to the same as the main stand IMO
By Kloppite
LFC should move out of anfield altogether and build a purpose build stadium with a suitable capacity of 70+k and be capable of holding events all year around.
By Anonymous
Agree with the above, the area is too constrained for the club to grow. A new stadium on Stanley Park or another location in the city is going to become essential for the club to keep pace with others.
By Anonymous
If it wasn’t for Liverpool FC then the city of Liverpool would be Hull or Stoke
By Trevor
Once Man United build their new 100,000 stadium then LFC have to serious consider building a new modern stadium even Man City have a bigger and better stadium now
By Peter
There was a proposal back in late 90s early 00s to move to a 70 thousand seater in Speak. Still would make sense to look at the edges of south Liverpool, plenty of open space access to Motorway and Airport. We are in an age now where football stadiums at the very top level need to grow multiple revenue streams including music events & other sporting events such as NFL. It seems the needs of LFC and the community around the stadium will continually be at logger heads and it would be best if the club left the area alltogether to secure its future and remain competitive in the modern game.
By Anonymous
Even before Liverpool’s new main stand was built more serious thought should have gone into a relocation. The ground has major expansion limits in the streets around Anfield, and the public transport was poor then and remains poor, and no bendybus will address that. The powers that be should have been talking to the club about moving and getting the old local railway stations re-opened to service the stadium, as well as the huge local population. The Metro Mayor, who is a kopite, needs to address this matter, and all parties should look for a suitable site nearby and get proper transport links sorted to handle crowds of 80,000+.
By Anonymous
I am starting to think that Liverpool may be best moving location in the near future, to provide a stadium capacity and facilities fitting for the club. The piece meal approach of FSG has worked well while they were re-building the club. Ideally, the new location would be linked to public transport and area regeneration. However, bar Stanley Park there are not many obvious options (could link it a new town bid and place it somewhere near the M62 and rail lines).
By Chris
It seems to me to be more about how LFC have gone about things than the actual road itself. Look at the pattern of side streets there – there is no reason why anyone would need to drive behind that stand. Likewise, there is a parallel pedestrian road in the park, so I wouldn’t say there is inconvenience.
On the flip side, it mays sense to improve the environment on matchdays.
I do think that members and officers, in making these decisions, become part of the design team – professionals are accountable for their advice, particularly around safety, so why should anyone flying in the face of this advice get away with making judgement on gut-feelings. God forbid there is any kind of incident as a result of keeping the road open but I bet the planning committee would remain unaccountable. If officers and council members had to put their name to a risk assessment, I bet things would be different.
By Mike
When did Liverpool FC purchase Anfield Road, I assume the road was there before the ground was built?
By Anonymous
@Anonymous 11:44 could be on to something. Moving closer to the club’s customer base makes much more sense. Whether the Premier League would allow a move out of the city could be a sticking point. That said, with 11 of the Prem’s clubs owned by Americans a franchise-based league might not be that far off. If Infantino can sell off the World Cup, why can’t Liverpool sell their franchise to the highest bidder and move to Dublin or Oslo?
By Birket Boy
Just put fences up either end with notices that is on H + S grounds. If club own the land then can fence it off on those grounds
By Anonymous
Although the Anfield stadium has been much improved over the last 10 years it’s still inadequate for a club like LFC. A move to another part of the city to create a bigger modern, accessible stadium is required. If LFC remain in Anfield they will fall behind the likes of City, Spurs and even Everton.
By Anonymous
Let lfc use it as part of the ground anfield road was only used as a rat run from arkles lane to walton lane anyway which is bad for local residents as an increas in traffic
By Anonymous
It maybe sacrilege to say this but two opportunities for a ground move could be Clubmoor Recreation Ground or Maiden Lane Playing Field, where there is an active rail line in close proximity.
There was also a line and a passenger station at Clubmoor up until the 1960s and that could be brought onto Merseyrail with battery powered trains.
By Anonymous
Everton had the right idea moving to a less contrained site.
By Anonymous
No one needs to drive down that road. It’s just car-brained nonsense to think otherwise
By Anonymous
@ Anon 10.53am, you might not know the area, but looking at this objectively if you were driving from Walton Lane up Anfield Rd, and heading to Arkles Lane, then any closure would mean a massive detour around the stadium.
Anyway I’m of the opinion that LFC need a much bigger stadium and to achieve that they should move.
By Anonymous
The map is misleading as there’s no road parallel to Anfield Road. Its all blocked off. When I’ve driven round there I’ve found the problem with closing Anfield Road is it means you have to pull out from a side street onto Walton Breck Road, which is a really busy road.
By Old Swan