New Everton Stadium: Planning Application to be submitted

Everton have been planning to move into their new stadium to be built on Bramley-Moore Docks for the 2023-24 season, and to ensure they stayed on track for that timeline the planning application to the City Council would need to be submitted by the end of 2019.

The club have today announced that the planning application will indeed be submitted on the 23rd of December, with hopes that it will be approved early in 2020 and from that point on we’re looking at a three-year construction phase once the final funding has been confirmed.

Stadium Development Director Colin Chong released a three-part statement giving updates on the planning application status, final proposals for the stadium and discussing ongoing engagement with stakeholders for the project.

Our date of submission
I’m pleased to confirm that our detailed planning application for a new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock will be submitted on Monday 23 December. This will be followed by an outline application for a legacy project at Goodison Park, with the intention for both applications to be determined by Liverpool City Council at the same time.
Working alongside our design consultants, we have analysed the feedback to enhance the concepts we’ve already shared for the look, feel and layout of a stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, including our plans to not only preserve but to also celebrate the site’s heritage. The planning application for a new stadium will be incredibly detailed. Given the nature of the site, we will address the many site-specific issues relating not only to the historic designation but to the legacy of the site, including ground conditions, ecology and accessibility.
The next step is for Liverpool City Council to review and process our significant and complex application, which will take time due to the scale of the submission, before starting their formal consultation period. We have worked closely with the Liverpool Planning Authority and Historic England to shape the application and ensure the required detail is included to enable our proposals to be appropriately considered.

The day before Christmas Eve promises to be an exciting one, because we’re going to see more concept pictures of the planned stadium.

Our final proposals
We will, of course, be releasing new images, as well as updating our app and flythough video with the new designs. These will be available on evertonfc.com and peoples-project.co.uk from the afternoon of Monday 23 December.
As the new visuals will show, it is a case of evolution rather than any major changes to the design presented during the second stage consultation. The results of that consultation made it clear Dan Meis’ design was incredibly well received. The elements that the feedback told us people really loved about the design – the use of brick, the steepness of the stands, the respect to the area’s heritage and nod to Archibald Leitch’s architecture in the brickwork as well as the blending of new and old – are all present within our final proposals.
There is a plan to repair and preserve the dock walls under the stadium, retain the water channel to maintain the interconnectivity of the docks and preserve and restore the hydraulic tower to bring it back into public use. We are working with key cultural and heritage stakeholders to help us deliver this.
Our pedestrian modelling study has ensured our final designs create accessible, inclusive, welcoming and exciting spaces for all. We’ve been continually using computer fluid dynamics software to map how fans, staff and visitors will move around the stadium, Fan Plaza and public areas on matchdays and non-matchdays.

Perhaps some of the most interesting and exciting work we’ve been conducting is how we help facilitate the best possible atmosphere for Evertonians on matchday.
Goodison Park is a special place with a special atmosphere. While we can’t replicate it decibel for decibel, we can create something that will be as inspiring and vibrant - as well as being intimidating for the opposition. To carry that unique sense of place through to our proposed new Bramley-Moore Dock home, we’ve been carrying out detailed studies of the acoustics at Goodison Park.
Taking our learnings from Goodison Park, we’ve been testing the acoustics of our proposed designs to measure how sounds of celebration will travel, reverberate and enhance the atmosphere but still create the sense of intimacy in a larger space. The intention is to contain the noise within the stadium to maximise the atmosphere but also to limit the impact of noise pollution on the surrounding area.

As a Club we are also challenging ourselves to think about how the stadium design and our legacy project will respond to our city region’s climate change crisis. Our city and city region politicians have declared a climate emergency and we are looking at the positive moves that can be made around transport, air quality, energy generation, conservation, waste recycling and how we can contribute to a low carbon economy.
All of the above will form part of our detailed planning application alongside the detailed design and access statement, evidence of community engagement and a full environmental impact assessment, backed by around 50 detailed reports.

Everton FC

Finally, just because the first few rounds of public consultations are complete doesn’t mean that the project is now shutting off communication with the people, as there are still lots of areas where we as supporters can contribute towards what our new stadium is going to be like, especially the matchday experience itself.

Ongoing engagement
We have been able to highlight the overwhelming support we have received and how this transformational project could deliver a £1bn boost to our economy, create the potential for up to 15,000 new jobs and attract 1.4m new visitors to our region annually.
It was really pleasing to see industry experts hailing the award-winning engagement and consultation work we have carried out so far. There will be further engagement with Evertonians in 2020 as we begin to focus on the details, including the matchday experience. There will also be more conversations to be had in the future with the local community living around Goodison Park, local businesses and community groups as we begin to refine our legacy plans.
I believe this is one of the most exciting development projects in world football and I look forward to sharing more updates as we progress through the planning process.

Everton with their outreach work in the Merseyside community and the methodical manner in which they have approached this new stadium project have shown that they can be a world class organization in non-footballing matters, now if only they could sort things out in the Boardroom and on the pitch and we’ll be well on the way to being a proper football club to be emulated worldwide.