Spurs and Everton make moves – Brand new Newcastle United stadium on Leazes Park essential | OneFootball

We need a brand new Newcastle United stadium.

I have said this many times.

It needs to have a capacity that will allow youngsters in, as they are the lifeblood of any football club.

It also needs to be financially accessible to the working class folk who have stood loyally by the club, as well as those who walked away when Mike Ashley ran the club as an advertisement vehicle for his sports ware empire.

West Ham upped sticks and ditched their “legacy support” to move to the Olympic stadium for financial gain.

Back in the nineties, John Hall threatened to move our club to Gateshead with a proposed 75,000 seater stadium, in an attempt to get planning permission for a San Siro to be built on Leazes Park/Castle Leazes. This was met with opposition from a group called ‘Friends of Leazes Park’. Sounds like the Wood Craft Folk from Jesmond. For whatever reasons, the Halls and Shepherds instead decided to expand St James’ Park from 36,000 to 52,000.

A quarter of a century further on, we are stuck with a Newcastle United stadium that is not up to the standard that we need and not enough people can get into.

I was recently at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Enough said.

Everton will kick off next season in a brand new stadium (see above and below) built on Bramley Moore Dock.

Liverpool council accepted the development, despite the knowledge that the docks were a designated world heritage site, placing it alongside the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China. The Mayor of Liverpool, Steve Rotheram, said places such as Liverpool should not be left with a choice between maintaining heritage status, or regeneration and bringing in jobs.

This month, Spurs have been given the go-ahead to build a new training ground, despite campaigners arguing it would destroy a park.

According to The Guardian, rare wildlife species would be affected. The football club plans to fence off a section of Whitewebbs Park in Enfield, north London, and build a new women’s academy, with 11 pitches and a new clubhouse.

‘Of the area of the park leased and managed by Spurs, 66% will remain open to the public, but 18 hectares will be fenced off for new pitches and facilities for the women’s football academy.’

Enfield Council backing the plans as Tottenham will be using only part of the land and providing investment to vastly improve the remaining two thirds of the park that will still be open to the public.

This brings us back to St James’ Park.

A recent exclusive from The Telegraph reported that the Newcastle United hierarchy had decided on a preferred option of a brand new stadium that would sit on land that would start on part of where the Leazes End currently is, then go diagonally to cover where the club’s multi-story car park currently sits, then use part of Leazes Park land. Barrack Road wouldn’t be affected and the exclusive reporting that the plans would include Newcastle United financing investment in the rest of the local park area,, as well as creating extra park land to make up for the loss of Leazes Park land for the new stadium. The report saying that the Newcastle United hierarchy of senior staff, are expected to now present this plan for the brand new Newcastle United stadium as the preferred option for final approval.

Would anyone class Leazes Park as a World Heritage site? It was a place us kids went on the boats in the summer and splashed people with the oars.

Newcastle City Council and all other local politicians and key partners, need to get behind the club and get planning permission for that brand new Newcastle United stadium we can all get in, plus financially help the club to compete on and off the pitch.