Photosales
niJobfinder
niCarfinder
Home Delivery
Propertynews
Plans for £128m city stadium unveiled
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
More pictures
The Belfast Telegraph can today reveal an ambitious plan to build a new 25,000 seater football and rugby stadium in the heart of east Belfast.
An urban alternative to the ill-fated Maze national stadium, the £128m Blanchflower stadium development would be sited at Sydenham, close to major road, rail, ferry and air links.
The £66m stadium would be home to the Northern Ireland football team and Ulster Rugby’s major European games, hosting top local showpiece football fixtures such as the Irish Cup final.
The Ulster Rugby squad would report every day at a £10m National Training Centre, although Ravenhill would remain the traditional home of rugby.
And it will create 100 permanent jobs as well as provide a boost for the hard hit Northern Ireland construction industry.
The stadium, costing £66m, would be home to the Northern Ireland football team and Ulster rugby's major European games. It would also host top local showpiece football fixtures, such as the Irish Cup Final.
Glentoran FC will be the anchor club tenant, moving from their nearby antiquated Oval stadium, which would then be developed, probably as a business park.
A covered walkway, over the Sydenham by-pass, will link George Best City Airport to the stadium and a new railway halt on the Bangor line. Four thousand car parking spaces complete the transport picture.
The plans also include a 150-bedroom hotel, as part of the stadium design, modelled on similar projects in England at the Bolton, Coventry and MK Dons grounds.
There will be retail and leisure areas, including an indoor five-a-side football arena, as well as Belfast City Council managed community facilities.
The Ulster Rugby squad would report for work there every day at a £10m national training centre for football and rugby, complete with covered training facilities and artificial surfaces. Nearby Ravenhill will remain the traditional home of rugby with only major revenue-generating fixtures, like the Heineken Cup, played on the new turf.
Gaelic Games will not be involved, as they would have been at the Maze, because of the GAA's expressed wish to maintain their Belfast presence at Casement Park in the west of the city.
The ambitious plan will have a few hurdles to clear.
The absence of Gaelic Games apart, it sounds like a good news story for Northern Ireland sport, one that ticks many of the boxes the Maze did not for its opponents, in terms of location, size, cost and transport.
However, there is a question mark with regard to the current home of the Northern Ireland football team, Windsor Park.
Football's governing body, the Irish FA, Ulster Rugby and the GAA were united in their early support for the Maze. But agendas, and personalities, have changed since then, particularly at the IFA.
Stormont politicians and Belfast City Council have reacted more positively to private presentations of the Belfast model than they did to the Maze.
Ulster Rugby sources have signalled a willingness to come on board for Heineken Cup-style European games, giving them twice the capacity of Ravenhill, and to base their Ulster professionals at the proposed national training centre.
But, despite being kept firmly in the loop, IFA chiefs remain non-committal.
Under deposed chief executive Howard Wells and go-ahead former president Jim Boyce, the IFA momentum was firmly in favour of a move away from rundown Windsor to a new state-of-the-art international stadium, wherever it may be.
A legal battle was shaping up as the IFA even prepared to break the terms of their 100-year rental agreement with stadium owners Linfield.
But with the forced departure of Mr Wells, the emphasis has appeared to shift back to redeveloping Windsor, so seriously starved of Government funding in comparison to other sports down the years, that its capacity has shrunk from 40,000 to 12,500, with the bizarre sight of a fire engine stationed alongside its remaining old wooden stand, during international games, under health and safety rules.
The crucial question for football, and the Stormont Executive, who will be expected to provide capital funding for the Blanchflower project, is where they will secure best value for the money Sports Minister Gregory Campbell has said he will divert from the Maze to boost the three sports and their facilities.
Windsor is seen as difficult to develop in terms of planning permission in a built-up area and would continue to be used solely for football.
Blanchflower is zoned for a vast playing fields area, whose current users will be accommodated in the new design. It will host more than one sport, with community and commercial aspects to make it self-financing.
Project manager Gilbert Graham said, however: “We are not in the business of talking down Windsor. We prefer to talk up our own project.
“It offers a great opportunity and showcase for Northern Ireland sport in the vacuum left by the Maze.
“It will create jobs, it will encourage investment and give this country sporting facilities to be proud of as the London 2012 Olympics approach.
“It will encompass everything that is good about the new Northern Ireland going forward.
“We've held exploratory talks with all the interested parties — football, rugby, their supporters, Government and the city council.
“They've seen our plans and the response has been largely positive.
“This was never meant to be a rival or alternative to the Maze, or to Windsor, for that matter. It was on the drawing board all through the Maze process.
“Our intention was to build a junior stadium but with the collapse of the Maze project there is a gap to be filled and we are ready to meet the need.
“Our plans are on the table. What we require now is a firm commitment... from the Government, from rugby and from football, telling us where they want to go. We can then build it in 18 months.”
- Text Size
Also in this section
- Mother and son die in house fire
- Protesters show Syria solidarity
- Man held on suspicion of terrorism
- Police seize spoof poster fanzine
- Police appeal over linked robberies
Comments
71 Comments
Hope this plan goes ahead without the GAA, they have never been very happy letting football or rugby be played in Croke park and lets face it they only reason they are doing it is because they get a lot of rent from the FAI and IRFU, speaking from experience as a Shamrock Rovers fan, They tried to stop Shamrock Rovers moving to their new ground with the excuse that they didn;t want the youth of Tallaght growing up on a diet of association football.
good luck to Glentoran if they are tenants, as the MK Dons said if you build it the people will come.
Posted by Dave Dublin | 27.03.09, 22:59 GMT
From the below posts there is an overwhelming support for this proposal, however, I am unsure?
I was completely against the Maze proposal, not for any political reason (I support the Long Kesh Reconciliation Centre project), but purely because of sporting, economic and common sense reasons, the Maze just didn't add up to me?
As for this proposal, I can see the positives, but I am dissapointed that there is no provision for GAA in the plans. A true shared stadium should be in a neutral area of the city, not that east Belfast is somehow 'loyalist', far from it, I live there, I should know, but the Holywood Road is a far cry from Casement Park.
I take on board the size of the GAA pitch being a problem, but is it really that bad at Croke Park? I would still love to see a shared stadium on the Northern foreshore, it is beside the new Stena ferry terminus, rails links, the M2 motorway (without the blockages of the M3) and in between the two airports, would this not suit everyone?
Posted by Steven | 26.03.09, 20:45 GMT
tony whats your worry, you've already said you wont go anyway and you've already said the GAA are planning to build a 45000 stadium anyway so it doesnt make a difference to you.
Posted by Neill | 26.03.09, 16:03 GMT
Perhaps Geoff & Matt could explain to me, if the area of the proposed new stadium is so un-neutral, why do I see so many cars from the South of Ireland in Ikea everytime I am there? Isn't it just across the bypass from the prosed location?
Tony - perhaps you want to read what the rugby chiefs have said - they have had meetings about the new stadium but haven't committed yet. Slightly different than giving it the thumbs down. But then what do you care as you say you will never be (yet you continue to post on this thread???)
Posted by NI Fan | 26.03.09, 15:00 GMT
I see that Ulster Rugby Chiefs have given this project the thumbs down already. The IFA doesn't know what its doing as usual, so with none of the three sports on board, its time to bin this fiasco and get back to the Maze pronto. There is no escape, if you'll pardon the pun!
Posted by Tony | 26.03.09, 12:52 GMT
Tony "The Maze plan remains the only viable option"
I'll save you a lot of bother of trying to stir the pot as it were.
The Maze plan has been c-o-n-s-i-g-n-e-d to the b-i-n and I hope they now bulldoze the place and let cows graze there instead.
Posted by mickey | 26.03.09, 12:03 GMT
Isn't it time that a post partition mentality was adopted, and a large stadium built at the Maze to accomodate all Ireland teams, in soccer, rugby and gaelic, not too mention concerts and other outdoor shows instead of this minimalist venture (which will never see the light of day anyway)
The Maze plan remains the only viable option. The Conflict Resolution Centre (which contains both loyalist and Republican memorials) can be easily avoided by visitors if that is their desire.
Posted by Tony | 26.03.09, 11:04 GMT
yea matt just like ikea - which is right beside the proposed plans- is covered in sectarian graffitti, and an uncomfortable place for nationalists- try telling that to the hundreds of southerners who go to this 'loyalist heartland' everyday.
obviously you don't know belfast you just seen 'East' and presumed the worst
Posted by bored | 26.03.09, 09:27 GMT
Great, so not only do I now have to put up with way too many aircraft flying overhead and polluting the skies above me it looks as if the the traffic is going to increase as well. On top of that all the drunken louts that follow these boring games, drop their litter all over the place, and why a hotel when the exisiting ones can't even fill to to capacity as has been mentioned previously within this newspaper.
Totally agree with previous comments - stick it in the harbour out of the way where it has the capacity to hold all this and It's Not In My Back Yard!!
Posted by Sydenham Popular Front | 26.03.09, 08:39 GMT
Actually I don't know what you mean by East Belfast, but I do think it is a more possitive approach to having a Stadium in N.I. The people in N.I need to have a good stadium (even indoor) to best sell their interests. I am an immigrate to Canada and Stadiums of this project size should be supported by all sides not just the IFA or Rugby Union. The Maze project was just more of the same that you have witnessed in the passed 30 years, you have to try and forget the passed and get on with clean living and respect other peoples beliefs, Northern Ireland is Northern Ireland, Londonderry is Londonderry etc. etc. Actually I have been removed from N. Ireland for some 42 years and glad to see that some positive approach has evolved.
Walter.
Posted by W Haslett | 26.03.09, 01:54 GMT
What a waste of money. Why in this day and age when people need money to live, are they spending money on somehting like this stupid stupid people.
Posted by Rayan | 26.03.09, 00:11 GMT
What are the odds this will go forward until somebody realises that in reality this will, be like all other major sporting construction projects and will take tewice as long and twice as much to build. Ah well it'll keep the folks on the hill in work anyway.
Posted by john | 25.03.09, 23:26 GMT
Northern Ireland does not end at the outskirts of Belfast. I have been a block booker at Windsor longer than I care to remember but there is no way I will travel right across Belfast for any game, getting to and from Windsor is bad enough! After a recent Odessey concert it took 2 hours just to get out of the car park! The Maze or somewhere more central and a Stadium of 30K would have been ideal for all - especially us country folk, who seem to have been forgotten in all site suggestions - Ormeau Park, the North foreshore and now East Belfast. Who wants to get drunk in a Belfast Pub before or after the match anyway -I'd rather get home in time to watch the N'orn I'ron highlights.
Posted by Red Rick | 25.03.09, 22:00 GMT
Total Rubbish! It'll be covered in UDA/UFF Symbols in no time. Yeah, great idea stick it in the east. That way the one side of the divide it will serve won't have too far to go!
Posted by Matt | 25.03.09, 21:10 GMT
Great idea. Lots of public transport options to get to the ground. Go on the Norn Irn!
Posted by James | 25.03.09, 19:59 GMT
Is it just me or why is the £128m stadium costing £66m. It is a pity that all sporting bodies can't reach agreement and build a stadium with a bigger capacity to do someting of significance. 25k is like a good league 1 crowd. It sounds like a halfway house project. It wouldn't be capable to hosting larger scale games such as World Cup, Euro Championship games in the future
Posted by Stuart | 25.03.09, 19:29 GMT
My main concern with the maze was that the GAA pitchs are too big compared to football and rugby pitchs. This is a great solution in a site that is both large and has great transport links!... win win for everyone.
sell and develop the maze into a shannon free zone business park and bring in some high value jobs and investment.
Posted by william | 25.03.09, 19:07 GMT
The Maze was never an option Geoff.
If you think the By-Pass isn't large enough to cope with the traffic then how would a country lane cope with it! This is a project that will take time to build. So the By-Pass could also be extended. Have a look at the West Link.
East Belfast is not a neutral community? I'm sure the residents of Short Strand and the Newtownards Road, which are in East Belfast will disagree. That was a childish comment Geoff, hold your head in shame! Apart from that Geoff, the Stadium wouldn't even be on the Newtownards Road.
If 'fans' from Newry or Fermanagh wouldn't travel to the new stadium then I have to ask, are they really 'fans'? Where do they watch the matchs, Rugby or Football, at present? As far as I can tell, they are both played in Belfast at present!
Belfast has everything needed to host a stadium like this. Hotels, Restaurants, Railway, Docks and Airport. I wish Liechtenstein had these when I went to watch Northern Ireland.
Posted by Kyle, Comber | 25.03.09, 17:42 GMT
Poor Fearon, getting grief from rugby fans for trying to sectarianise the island's team winning the Six Nations, can't use his full name on this forum anymore, no one will publish his rants and now he is reduced to trying to sectarianise this workable and popular solution to the country's need for a sports stadium. Tone: I'm afraid you've been rumbled:) FYI, myself and other fans of the national team objected to the Maze proposal because, although well intentioned, it was fatally flawed in a number of fundamental ways (location and capacity being foremost). The politics were a side issue for most football fans, but were clearly cynically used by the DUP, SF and their fellow travellers to promote their own narrow sectarian agendas.
Posted by Teddy Bhoy | 25.03.09, 17:30 GMT
Great big thumbs up from me. The city is where it should be, where the majority of the fans are and where visitors to NI want to be. Get building.
Posted by Paul J | 25.03.09, 17:27 GMT
71 Comments