Source: Liverpool_Echo
Liverpool council leader Joe Anderson is the right man to help Everton FC find their new home.
ANYONE who has spent time professionally engaged in Everton's stadium debate knows it can be like sticking your brain into a washing machine on full cycle.[LNB]Ideas and claims are twirled about ad hoc, a lot of froth builds up, but ultimately the central themes seem to go around and around in ever decreasing circles.[LNB]For every ray of enlightenment, every balloon of optimism, there is a pin ready and waiting to do the bursting.[LNB]Each new proposal, no matter how ambitious, good-natured, and impressive, seems fatally vague over the crucial question.[LNB]How are Everton going to fund that?[LNB]A Siamese shared-stadium complex? Intriguing. But how would Everton fund their half?[LNB]A new ground on any number of proposed sites within the Liverpool boundaries? Bring it on - but where is the money?[LNB]Robert Elstone must feel like a broken record sometimes. He has said, time and again, that nothing can happen without the significant support of either the private or public sector.[LNB]Enabling retail facility is a fundamental must. It is what made Destination Kirkby a realistic prospect.[LNB]So too, is a cooperative local authority. Under the recently-departed Liberal Democrat council, the degree of cooperation was often debatable.[LNB]Initially prevented from officially talking to Everton under the terms of the exclusivity agreement between Everton, Tesco and Knowsley council, ex-city leader Warren Bradley could do little but make sympathetic noises.[LNB]Yet when the channels of communication were finally opened, the council were far from dynamic.[LNB]A string of unsuitable sites were offered up for Everton's consideration, as relations on both sides grew increasingly fraught.[LNB]To the bemusement of everybody at Goodison Park, the council sat on, and then denied the Toffees planning permission to generate vital funds by building luxury homes on their former Bellefield training ground.[LNB]It meant a £10m hole in their stadium budget and left an understandable sense of rancour which would not dissipate.
