Everton have seen plans for a new stadium collapse again after their proposed move to Walton Hall Park was abandoned, according to the Liverpool Echo.
Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson said the area “will remain a park and be designated as such” – with housing and retail development plans also scrapped.
Everton and Liverpool council will now look for another potential new home for the Blues, with two unnamed sites in the city already identified.
A joint statement from the club and council said:
Liverpool City Council and Everton Football Club can confirm they have been working together over recent months to investigate alternative plans for a new stadium for Everton Football Club.
These new plans no longer focus on Walton Hall Park but on two other potential sites brownfield sites within the city boundary.
The proposed scheme at Walton Hall Park was always an ambitious one. It was a regeneration scheme that relied heavily on retail investment into the site.
Most of the current investment into retail is focused on city centres and larger district centres and not on out-of-town developments like this would have been.
Everton have been looking to build a new stadium for quite some time but until the arrival of Iranian billionaire Farhad Moshiri, financial restraints hampered plans.
The club’s Walton Hall Park proposal was met by fierce opposition from campaigners, who wanted to keep the area free from development.
A brownfield site in Liverpool is now being looked at as a possible stadium location, and Everton chief executive Roberto Elstone remained positive as the Blues hunt for a new home:
Our work with the council, particularly over the last few months, has been positive and progressive and whilst our work evaluating the alternatives is at an early stage, we are hopeful that the new sites provide us with a much more straightforward, deliverable opportunity to build a new stadium.
