Dyed Petya
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 2 May 2007
- Messages
- 1,490
scall said:
The BMX Centre was announced in July (see here: http://www.neweastmanchester.com/pr...als-for-£24-million-bmx-centre-announced.aspx.
Today they've announced that they've got £8 million of funding from the NWDA, without which the project probably wouldn't have gone ahead. The BMX Centre is going to be over somewhere by the Velodrome on the other side of Alan Turing Way, between Phillips Park and Asda. So that still leaves the rest of the main Sportcity site to be developed: both the area to the north east of the stadium bordered by Alan Turing Way, Sportcity Way, Joe Mercer Way and the Ashton Canal, which is where the Supercasino was going to be; and the northern end of the site, where there's currently car parking, which was earmarked for a new Lancashire cricket ground before they decided to stay put.
The architects Sheppard Robson, a few years back, threw their hat in the ring for getting work from the site development by making public a design for Sportcity. It incorporates both the Supercasino and cricket ground and can be found here: http://www.sheppardrobson.com/projects/page.cfm?projectID=100151.
One thing that this week's news of Garry Cook becoming a director of New East Manchester seems to suggest is that the club is staying in the vicinity. Surely they wouldn't allow him on board if they weren't expecting the club to stick around and to be an enthusiastic partner in the regeneration of the area. I've seen people quoting rumours on here that ADUG were looking at building a new mega stadium anywhere from Salford to Hough End to Tameside, but that looks pretty unlikely now.
(It may also be good news for GC personally. If ADUG are here because of the development potential of land around the stadium, and they want him to represent us on the body responsible for regeneration of the area, they presumably see him as a long term bet).
I suppose we should note that, in theory, Sportcity or environs may have the potential to be the home to a completely new stadium. It could be built where the cricket ground would have been, I guess, with the visitor attraction on the Casino site. And the Clayton Aniline site is huge, much bigger than the Sportcity site, so maybe they could incorporate a stadium there along with other plans.
Personally, I think that unlikely. I have no doubt that at some point in the 10-year plan, a significant capacity increase will be on the agenda assuming some measure of on-field success, but I can't see them binning such a new stadium unless as a last resort.