These plans very much fit in with The Football Quarter ideas.
Peter's map of the area that this covers is correct as well. These plans cover the old Phase 6 and 7 of the HMRI scheme.
The plans don't make it any more or less likely for a redeveloped stadium, but it shows the sort of things the council is working on to try and make things happen.
didn't I read somewhere that Liverpool is the largest tourist attraction in the UK outside of London?...
Unfortunately not. But it is getting there. There’s even people coming down from Edinburgh to see what it is that the city is getting right.
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One of the right things is an ‘integrated offer’ ie., presenting a clear picture of what’s on offer, playing to strengths and not confusing different areas - the Waterfront, the Cavern Quarter, the Ropewalks, the Cathedrals, the Georgian Quarter... the Football Quarter.
LFC and EFC together across Stanley Park is and always be about football for the visitor. That’s its strength. It is not about the surrounding communities (with regard to Tourism). However, the communities would benefit hugely in terms of education, economic activity, business start-up prospects and job creation.
The Vernon Sangster will be be re-built. The park has been restored. It can be fully reverted to community use (albeit occasionally shared with a fan-zone in the park - taking 100,000 if needed. After all we have lost our big top). The school has been rebuilt. The Isla Gladstone Conservatory has been restored. These things change the perception of the place and doing that is half the start.
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Walton Breck Road can be the Yawkey Way of the area - packed with (football-related) shops and eateries. A milling space, a meeting place, a food, ale and plaza place. A 'tree-lined Walk of Fame' around the ground - with Abe Lincoln sized statues of the Anfield Greats and five enormous European Cups on huge plinths (with of course a spare for the next one). A venue for the occasion. Another Wembley Way if you like (but better - a LOT better).
Then there’s the pubs... you could say there’s a lot of money that runs through the clubs fingers and into the pockets of the area’s pub landlords. In my view, that’s how it should be. The pub is part and parcel - for the local. But the club can glean a lot more from visiting fans and away fans outside the ground as well as in it. To state the extreme, what if the club owned the freehold of The Albert for example? Nice ‘little’ earner. What if there were five Alberts?
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Liverpool’s hotel market is standing up to the recession better than most. The hotels in town are close to the buzz and flesh-pots and together it’s very attractive for the visitor. Less so, to be camped out in Anfield/Breckfield, whatever the day time attractions of the Football Quarter (and of the match, day or night). After the match we bomb into town and that works. It works for the residents, for the football and as an attraction to the city as a whole.
Frankly the last thing the residents of L4 need is a hotel (or a prolonged night-time economy). And they need WBR to work as a community hub for the majority of the time when the match isn’t on. They live there. We just visit.
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Easy access to Queen’s Drive is about local access - and it could be better but forget the tram. Just forget it. Stations on the railway would benefit the local community as much as the visitor. I think there used to be six stations on that line between Edge Hill and Kirkdale.
And opening up the line to the city centre could, could (it’s bloody expensive too), link the out of town visitor almost straight to the ground. A timely rail service would be better for the city and the visitor than a long slog home with no pint straight after the match. If it were me I’d run it via Lime Street and the underground.
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The kind of development needed is about extending the ‘core experience’. Right now (in the most part) the club benefits five minutes either side of the 90 plus a pee and a pie break halfway through.
Whereas, there’s a market for a whole day experience (academy visit, sports training Museum Tour, Heritage Trail, 100 players and days that shook the Kop, Club Shop, Sports Bar, the ‘Kop Way’) of which the match itself is ‘just’ a (most important) part.
You can’t actually benefit financially so much within the ground because of the way the game is. It isn’t NFL. But if you play your cards right, it will knock over into a weekend stay in a hotel in town and you see all the other stuff - The Beatles, Albert Dock, Liverpool One...
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All these things can be - but the question is, do we have to get involved or should the club stick to its knitting? If the financial feasibility of any of these things is based on a weekly/fortnightly event, the club should steer well clear.
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And although football is the core and a main contributor to the financial success of a Football Quarter, neither club will, nor indeed can, be a prime financial participant. In a tightening situation for football itself, they can only do their bit for the benefit of the city by looking after their own business and maintaining their own international appeal for their own benefit.
The strength of a Football Quarter is in the sum of its parts. It would indeed “create a great draw and showcase for the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of anticipated football visitors to the city. A tourist destination worthy of international status and recognition; providing increased employment and visitor spend towards the city’s target of 14,000 jobs and £2bn a year by 2020” but it is not the club’s part to drive that.
It is after all way beyond the ken (and the pocket) of FSG to encompass the multi-faceted Football Quarter. The totality of the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct is at least an entirely sports opportunity (although it has taken since 1956 to get where it is now) but the £1bn Etihad Campus/Eastlands Regeneration is a commercial enterprise first and a football opportunity second. As said FSG are simply not in a position to create a market in that way nor is it their focus.
A Football Quarter could have a critical mass of its own. It could draw in people seven days a week but if it doesn't, it will not succeed. From what I hear FSG take an arm's length view of Yawkey Way. It is small. It is otherwise empty. On the whole, marginal.
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