I take Ms Garlick to mean that a land deal announcement is still coming. The details of these FAILED sites are being released in the meanwhile, to (very belatedly) demonstrate that other attempts have been made over the last couple of years.
Unfortunately the 3 sites mentioned appear to have been pointless exercises, and could have been ruled out with minimal effort I would have thought. For a start, aren’t a couple of them way below the size that Fisher said he was looking for? And I’d love to know how much they bid for the land at Ryton that went for £650,000 per acre.
All three are on the east side, with no mention of the Warwick University area which has been rumoured in the past. Big problems with Green belt and access, but the Local Plan is still being worked on and the HS2 line is coming, so maybe you can’t rule anything out. There’s a possible new road on the north west side of the city which would open up development land – but then you are getting so close to the Ricoh that it just highlights how barmy the idea of a second stadium is anyway.
My fear is that by mentioning these sites around the city boundary, they are showing that they tried hard to find somewhere nearby – and softening people up for a site further away. In that case, the PR boys will have some hard work to do.
