[lfc-news] New Anfield faces second cash blow - Echo

Liverpool Echo, 22 June 2005
New Anfield faces second cash blow
By Thomas Martin, Liverpool Echo

LIVERPOOL's ambition to build a new football stadium faced another
funding setback today.

Days after the Northwest Development Agency (NWDA) refused to hand over
£23m of a government grant for the stadium project, it emerged that
Merseyside's Objective 1 programme may withdraw its financial offer.

It had already agreed to give Liverpool its own £9m grant towards the
cost of the stadium and associated developments around Stanley Park in
Anfield.

But it will now reconsider that decision at a monitoring meeting
scheduled for next month.

Objective 1 programme director John Flamson said the crunch time would
be the meeting scheduled for July 20.

"The programme monitoring committee might remove the offer. We have told
Liverpool council that we want assurances as to the deliverability of
the project.

"We were not surprised by the NWDA decision as they will not want to put
their money into something that is so obviously a football club.

"Instead, it needs to be tied in with associated regeneration projects
for Anfield and Breckfield.

"As a result, we have to ask do we want to keep our £9m offer alive?
There will be people on that committee who will want to withdraw it.

"We will not hold our position for ever and a day. We need to look at
this as sensible stewards of public money at the end of the day.

"If we don't do it, that could deny us the chance to put this money into
other schemes on Merseyside that could work."

Liverpool has applied for £23m of NWDA money, but was told at a recent
meeting that £9m of the application did not fit the agencies criteria
for public funding. It is understood that Liverpool had originally tried
to finance the stadium with only private sector money.

Liverpool FC Chief executive Rick Parry has not commented on the funding
issue since the ECHO first broke the NWDA story on Monday.

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