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Work hasn’t been progressing on Liverpool Football Club’s new stadium. Stanley Park is going to be the new ground for Liverpool after the end of the 2011/12 season. It will be officially opened in August 2012 and will seat 60,000 fans with the option to have another 11,000 seats if required. The new Kop alone will hold 12,500 which is 5,000 more than the original Kop at Anfield.

Although ground work has been completed on site, nothing further seems to have happened which could be due to the current economic climate. It has been rumoured that the American owners of Liverpool FC have not yet managed to raise enough cash for the stadium to be built.

The London 2012 Olympics are only 3 years away and construction started on the Olympic village and all of the facilities even before the Olympics in Beijing had finished but are we on track to meet the targets for its completion?

Beijing set a high standard last year after producing some spectacular buildings to house to games, including the ‘cube’ for the swimming and the ‘Bird’s Nest’ for all the track and field events. We are all hoping that London is going to be even more amazing but will it all be finished in time?

The Olympic committee have already claimed that the London 2012 games will be the ‘greenest’ games ever. The Olympic village is located in Lower Lea Valley in East London. The project is twice the size of Heathrow’s Terminal Five and it is hoped it will be delivered in half of the time.

So far the buildings that are underway are the Aquatics Centre, Olympic Village and VeloPark. Construction will continue to accelerate over the next year or so when they will start to construct the last of the ‘big five’ venues which will include the International Broadcast Centre which will stream the games live across the world.

Sweden has sustainability incorporated into all of their new developments. Take the Vastra Hamnen development in Malmo for example. The docklands of the city were derelict and run down after the demise of the ship building industry in the 1970s. However, the city council took it upon themselves to redevelop the entire site, creating a new residential area as well as a number of mixed use developments, public open space and green infrastructure.

It has transformed an otherwise dilapidated part of Malmo as well as incorporating the ‘green’ credentials into all the developments. The majority of the electricity used on site will be obtained from renewable resources; waste water is recycled and reused onsite.

Would it be that difficult for Britain to include some of these ideas into new developments? Home owners already have certain rights set out in the General Permitted Development Order which states they can do certain things to their homes to make them greener such as installing solar panels or laying down extra insulation. But will it ever be possible to Britain to become totally ‘green’? Only time will tell.

Chester station is to receive £1.4 million to help funding the improvements. The money which was given by the North West Development Agency will help to provide new passenger facilities including a new waiting room, a second stairway to the platforms and extra office space. The station in Chester is steeped in history with the original building being Grade II listed. It is hoped that the improvements to the area will help to service the busiest platform at the station which see trains going to Manchester, Liverpool and London.

There is currently a large amount of regeneration work being carried out in and around Chester station, a project which has been named ‘Chester Station Gateway Project’. The Project is a key project within the Chester Renaissance Programme, which is seeking to bring together the public and private sector to deliver a package of regeneration priorities.

Chester Renaissance is delivering a programme of new development and city centre improvements that will make Chester a must see European city. The city council is hoping that it will attract more visitors to the city as well as encourage businesses and attract investment over the next 50 years.

Plans for a £400 million port in Salford have been given the all clear by council’s planning officials.

The project is to be constructed by Peel Group and the director of the project Mike Butterworth is said to be thrilled that the plans have finally been approved. Peel Holdings (part of the Peel Group) have been advised by planning consultants Indigo Planning who have offices around the country.

Following the go ahead from Salford Council, Peel will now be working with the Council, Highways Authority and other stakeholders to agree the strategy for implementing the scheme. It is hoped that the port will create 3,000 new jobs and boost the local economy by £83 million per year.

Mike Butterworth commented that Port Salford will bring together rail, road and short sea shipping together in a unique development alongside Manchester Ship Canal’. As well as this it is hoped that the port will reduce the number of lorry journeys through the use of the Manchester Ship Canal.

Salford councillor Derek Antrobus said the news of another major development in the area shows what a good place Salford is to invest and do business. He further stated that it was important to bring the Manchester Ship Canal back into use and should contribute to ‘improving regional transport and releasing capacity at Manchester’s Piccadilly Station’.

He says by bringing back the Manchester Ship Canal as a working waterway, Salford’s history is being used to secure the best possible future for the city.

The site which is located between Barton Bridge and Irlam in Eccles is approximately 137 hectares in size and will have the capacity to handle 300,000 container units as well as service 16 freight trains daily.
Bill Davidson from the planning consultants, Indigo Planning who helped to gain this momentous approval said that ‘Port Salford is set to boost the Greater Manchester economy by up to £83 million a year, creating a single location from which to distribute goods by rail or sea to a range of destinations and leading to a substantial net transfer of HGV kilometres from the road network’.