Everton release final designs for new 52,000 seater stadium

Everton Football has published the final designs of its new 52,000-seater stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock on Liverpool’s waterfront.

The publication has come before a detailed planning application is submitted to Liverpool City Council this week.

The plans for the £500m stadium, which will sit within Peel L&P’s Liverpool Waters site, will have a transformational impact on North Liverpool, kick-starting the regeneration of the northern docklands, contributing a £1bn boost to the city region’s economy, creating up to 15,000 jobs and attracting 1.4m visitors to the city each year.

At the heart of the proposal is a brick, steel and glass stadium which takes its inspiration from the historic maritime and warehouse buildings nearby.

The stadium structure combines the historic and the modern, with the brick base incorporating a nod to Goodison Park’s famous Archibald Leitch lattice work, while the dynamic roof structure made from steel and glass gives the stadium a modern finish.

Following analysis of the feedback received through the Club’s public consultation, and a range of detailed technical assessments, the stadium designs have evolved.

The multi-storey car park has been relocated from its previous waterfront location and integrated within the stadium to create one impressive standalone structure, while additional environmental measures, including wind baffles, have been incorporated in the final proposals.

The plans also include extensive public spaces for use on both matchdays and non-matchdays featuring a Fan Plaza to the east of the stadium which will provide a focus for pre and post-match entertainment and activity.

The detailed stadium application will be submitted to Liverpool City Council, followed by a separate outline planning application for a community-led legacy project at Goodison Park, with the intention for both applications to be determined by Liverpool City Council at the same time.

This would see Everton’s home for 127 years redeveloped to provide a range of community assets in Liverpool four, including high quality, affordable housing, a multi-purpose health centre, community-led retail and leisure spaces and a youth enterprise zone.

The legacy plans will allow the club to build on the life-changing and life-saving work of its official charity Everton in the Community, enabling the Club to create an additional £240m of societal value.

The planning milestone follows three years of comprehensive public, fan and stakeholder engagement which included more than 63,000 responses received across two stages of formal public consultation.

The second stage of consultation, held in Summer 2019, generated more than 43,000 responses, with 96 per cent of respondents saying they wanted The People’s Project – the combined stadium and Goodison Park redevelopment plans – to progress. Eight out of 10 non-Evertonians also supported the progression of the plans.

The results showed near universal support (98 per cent) for the design of the Club’s 52,000-seater stadium.

Professor Denise Barrett-Baxendale, chief executive of Everton Football Club, said: “This is a huge milestone in the Club’s history but also a profound statement of intent for our future. It marks the culmination of many years of work that has combined the passion of our fans with world class design and a commitment to creating something truly special on Liverpool’s waterfront.

“The stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock will deliver the best possible matchday experience for our fans, new facilities for cultural events and a building that will be a stunning new addition to Liverpool’s built environment.

“Our proposals are a commitment to a long and exciting future for the Club in North Liverpool, and also for our award-winning charity, Everton in the Community, to continue to make a life-changing difference in Liverpool 4.

“From its inception, we’ve always believed that this project can be a game-changer for North Liverpool. The vast amount of feedback and overwhelming support we received through our consultation has shown that the people of Liverpool understand that The People’s Project isn’t just about a new football ground – it’s about regeneration, jobs and social value.

“If we are granted planning approval, this will be a world class football stadium in a world class location and a catalyst for Liverpool City Region’s ongoing growth and success.”

The proposed stadium is made up of four distinctive stands including a large steep home stand to the south that will house 13,000 Evertonians on matchdays. Supporters will be as close to the action as regulations permit.

The overall design will also help amplify the noise within the stadium to capture the intensity and intimacy of Goodison Park in a state-of-the-art arena, while limiting the impact of noise pollution on the surrounding area.

The design of both North and South stand lower tiers will make it easy to adopt rail seating and, should legislation change in the future, they could also be converted into areas for safe standing – offering supporters flexibility in the future.

Bramley-Moore Dock’s location within Liverpool’s World Heritage Site and its status as a conservation area have been fundamental to how the project has been designed and planned. Working closely with Liverpool City Council and heritage bodies, the stadium has been designed to respect and preserve the heritage of the area, while bringing a derelict dockland site back into productive use.

A water channel would be maintained to the west of the stadium to ensure the visual continuity of the dock system – a key feature of the Outstanding Universal Value of the World Heritage Site – with the historic dock wall on the western side of the channel exposed. The site’s Grade II Listed Hydraulic Tower would be restored to create a unique visitor attraction, attracting tourists on non-matchdays, and a range of Bramley-Moore Dock’s historic features, including capstones, mooring posts and old railway tracks, will be restored.

Colin Chong, stadium development director at Everton Football Club, added: “This project has been designed from the ground up with the site’s heritage in mind – getting this right has always been our priority.

“We have invested an enormous amount of resource and effort in creating a design that not only respects and looks at home in a dockland setting but will also restore and preserve the historic features of Bramley-Moore Dock and, importantly, open a currently inaccessible site to the public.

“We have worked closely with Liverpool City Council and heritage organisations as the plans have evolved and our final proposals include a significant amount of environmental remediation work, along with measures to restore and preserve key aspects of the dock.

“We are immensely proud to submit our proposals for what I believe is one of the most exciting development projects in world football.”

Darran Lawless, Development Director at Peel L&P’s Liverpool Waters said: “This is a key milestone in the delivery plan for the new Everton stadium. The planning application being submitted for this significant landmark at Liverpool Waters will accelerate the development of the scheme and will compliment the numerous other projects currently underway.”

The next step is for Liverpool City Council to review and process the significant and complex application, which will take time due to the scale of the submission, before starting their formal consultation period. The Club, being advised by the CBRE UK Planning & Development team, has worked closely with the Liverpool Planning Authority and Historic England to shape the application and ensure the required detail is included to enable the proposals to be appropriately considered.