Just a thought on all this - I remember a few weeks or so back a thread going round re: the club banning/asking people to stay away from Melwood. There was a lot of speculation as to why; was it health and safety, club being disconnected etc.
Looks to me like we have our answer with this. I could be wildly mistaken but I'm guessing that with Melwood being sold they are going to have investors/developers on site who they wouldn't want getting obstructed and also if there was an accident it probably wouldn't help the club should there be any litigation/bad press as a result.