St James' Park

[JT24]

Craig Hope:

 

Quote

Newcastle chiefs are exploring a SECOND city centre site for a new stadium, Confidential can reveal.

 

Feasibility work continues around Leazes Park, the club’s preferred choice, but senior staff are now considering and will visit an alternative. An inhabitation of bats is one of the challenges they face at Leazes Park.

 

Confidential can reveal that a senior PIF delegation are scheduled to meet with the club's executive team, led by CEO David Hopkinson, at Matfen Hall later this month. Stadium plans will be at the top of the agenda during the key summit and progress is expected over whether a new home or a renovation of St James’ Park is the ownership’s preferred direction of travel.

 

One major development in recent weeks is the emergence of an alternative plot to Leazes Park, should the Saudis sanction a new build. Sources have stressed that this site would still be in the city centre.

 

Leazes Park, just north of St James’, has long been identified as the ideal setting for a new super-stadium. One issue encountered is the presence of bats, although club chiefs are confident of navigating this and several other factors involving plant and animal life. 

 

A specialist firm have been consulted for surveys on how to relocate the bats, while legal requirements are being considered. It is a criminal offence to intentionally disturb or kill bats.

 

Meanwhile, Hopkinson and chief operating officer, Brad Miller, are working around the clock to present all viable options to the ownership this month.

 

Hopkinson told Confidential: ‘My job is to develop true optionality. That is why this process takes so long. It’s very easy to say, “Oh, just build it there”. But what needs to happen for that to be possible? It’s labour intensive and very expensive. There are legal, government, heritage, environment and residential considerations. You can’t build somewhere just because you want to.’

 

Alternative sites within the city area could include Hunters Moor, north of Leazes Park, or the nearby Nuns Moor Park. North East mayor Kim McGuinness is also said to be keen for investment and regeneration in the Arthur’s Hill area, which is only a mile from St James’.

 

As reported last year, supply-and-demand modelling has shown that a new-build would need a capacity of at least 65,000, but no more than 70,000. An expansion of St James' could not go beyond 60-62,000 because of architectural limitations.

 

 

 

Edited April 16 by JT24

[Pixelphish]

[gbandit]

Fingers crossed we get an update in 2029 saying we’re exploring some other sites as well. Need that sweet sweet hit of ambition 

[Shak]

[Superior Acuña]

I think those named sites are starting to stretch the 'city centre' definition a bit.

[Kid Icarus]

My lass used to do bat surveys, not sure they add on that much time like. I think the Spanish City refurb was delayed by 6 months because of them?

[duo]

37 minutes ago, JT24 said:

Craig Hope:

 

 

 

 

 

It's just more..

 

[Turnbull2000]

Just need an HS2 style, 800 million pound bat protection shelter, with St James park sitting on top.

 

Seriously though, even with our deeply anti-growth, anti-progress planning system, you'd expect high level intervention to ensure it goes ahead if considered a huge benefit to the city. This feels to me like the owners pretending they still have major plans whilst quietly abandoning them. 

[TRon]

Quote

Hopkinson told Confidential: ‘My job is to develop true optionality. That is why this process takes so long. It’s very easy to say, “Oh, just build it there”. But what needs to happen for that to be possible? It’s labour intensive and very expensive. There are legal, government, heritage, environment and residential considerations. You can’t build somewhere just because you want to.’

 

 

Whatever you think about their intentions, there's no getting around the fact that it is a big project with a lot of hurdles. I can remember John Hall eventually just giving up with the amount of hurdles that were put in the way of expanding on the town moor. Or maybe he just couldn't be arsed and lost interest somewhere along the line. 

 

[The Prophet]

20 minutes ago, Turnbull2000 said:

Just need an HS2 style, 800 million pound bat protection shelter, with St James park sitting on top.

 

Seriously though, even with our deeply anti-growth, anti-progress planning system, you'd expect high level intervention to ensure it goes ahead if considered a huge benefit to the city. This feels to me like the owners pretending they still have major plans whilst quietly abandoning them. 

 

Why would they do that though?

 

"Dave, it's been a while since we floated the fake stadium rumours, can you give Craig or Luke a bell and give them another boring non-update please."

[nufc123]

[TheInfiniteOdyssey]

[TBG]

Could we not just extend the East Stand?

[HayDen Traces]

6 minutes ago, TBG said:

Could we not just extend the East Stand?

Nope. Not with the listed buildings sat behind

[TBG]

Surely we can just move it somehow?

[Scoot]

23 minutes ago, TBG said:

Surely we can just move it somehow?

 

Can't we move leazes terrace to Beamish, brick by brick?

[Toon No9]

32 minutes ago, Scoot said:

 

Can't we move leazes terrace to Beamish, brick by brick?

That's a great idea!

Have anyone told the owners?

[Moose]

Can we not move that colony of bats in Leazes Park to Beamish? Bat by bat?

[TomYam]

19 minutes ago, Moose said:

Can we not move that colony of bats in Leazes Park to Beamish? Bat by bat?

I've long held the belief that bats should reside near cricket grounds and have no right to hang out by a football stadium.

[TheBrownBottle]

9 hours ago, Kid Icarus said:

My lass used to do bat surveys, not sure they add on that much time like. I think the Spanish City refurb was delayed by 6 months because of them?

It was - I was the bank monitor QS on the Spanish City refurb  

[Kid Icarus]

4 hours ago, TheBrownBottle said:

It was - I was the bank monitor QS on the Spanish City refurb  

Ah canny! Aye, I did a couple of shifts with her surveying the bats there like, proper surreal experience.

[TheBrownBottle]

56 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

Ah canny! Aye, I did a couple of shifts with her surveying the bats there like, proper surreal experience.

It really was - wandering around inside the section with the dome with the guts completely ripped out is a sort of haunting experience!  Bank monitoring is such a great thing to do - you’re only accountable for drawdowns, so the pressure is on everyone else.  So I got to wander around what felt like a post-apocalyptic Whitley Bay contently (though with an unhappy bank, as the bats pushed out program and costs - the contingency was gobbled up by bats alone!)

 

edit: I’m going to see if I still have some of the photos - I think I kept some of them.  I don’t usually do that on projects - but it was too surreal not to

 

 

Edited April 17 by TheBrownBottle

[Kimbo]

Presumably a mole population is the hold up with with regards to the lack of a new training ground.

 

A new stadium should’ve been built on the arena site IMO, though obviously that might disturb a local rat population.

[Jackie Broon]

17 hours ago, Kid Icarus said:

My lass used to do bat surveys, not sure they add on that much time like. I think the Spanish City refurb was delayed by 6 months because of them?

 

They can, because they can generally only be done May-August. But in that season the surveys themselves shouldn't add much time and the Natural England license process would usually be post planning permission.

 

I've never in my career had a case where a development has been completely prevented by bats, but its astonishing how many are delayed by developers throwing in applications either without having read surveys that say emergence surveys are needed, or hoping the planners jusr don't notice, and then by that time it's September and they can't get them done until the bats wake up in May.

 

 

[Superior Acuña]

Hope they work this into a Corrie Roy Cropper storyline.