Common ground hope

Latics will listen to residents

RESIDENTS are being invited to have their say on Latics’ controversial plans for a £20 million new stadium in Failsworth.

A public exhibition of the proposals will take place at the Lancaster Club on Wednesday, June 2, with residents able to drop in to view the proposals and make comments any time from 3 to 9pm.

The event was originally scheduled for February but had to be cancelled at the last minute. It’s part of the League One club’s bid to consult the public over the 12,000-seater stadium, with community sports facilities, proposed for a 30-acre site off Broadway.

The Boundary Park outfit is sending out 10,000 leaflets to residents nearest the site inviting them along. As well as the sports facilities, other potential developments include a health and fitness centre, restaurants, hotel and cinema.

Latics chief executive Alan Hardy said: “We want to know if people have any other ideas or facilities they want to see on the site.”

A map on the leaflet shows how an electricity pylon, the fact the Lancaster Club is a listed building and a steep sloping ground to one side add a few difficulties to redevelopment. Mr Hardy also revealed that the local elections, which have resulted in a Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition, have not changed the council’s stance on supporting the plans.

The council wants the Charity Commission to deem an area of open land at Lower Failsworth Memorial Park as a trust and then swap it for another site to be redeveloped.

Mr Hardy stressed that the plans do not include the formal part of the memorial park, which includes bowling greens and play area, but scrubland to the south of it.

Campaigners fighting to stop the development say the open land is part of the memorial park — public land protected by a charitable trust.