By Don Mort, local democracy reporter
Plans to expand Leeds United’s Elland Road stadium could be approved if parking and road safety concerns are resolved.
The city council and club bosses hope to avoid a delay to the project, which would eventually boost seating capacity to 53,000.
A first phase of the scheme would see the partial demolition and redevelopment of the West Stand. The North Stand would be redeveloped under longer term plans for the ground.
A progress report said a planning application could be decided at the November meeting of the council’s City Plans Panel.
But it said: “Further work is needed before the impact of the development on the highway and transport network can be fully understood and mitigated.”
A panel meeting on Thursday was told a travel plan for the project aimed to see no increases in on-street parking or traffic congestion.
Leeds United’s chief business officer Morrie Eisenberg said: “We have a lot of really tangible measures we think are going to have a real impact on match days.”
It was hoped more fans would share cars to matches and use public transport. Pre-match closures of Elland Road were among the measures being considered.
David Blackburn, Farnley and Wortley Green Party councillor, said he supported the expansion.
He told the meeting: “But in saying that, the devil is going to be in the detail of highways. I think it stands or falls on that.”
The report said traffic problems included queuing on the M621 “which has previously led to some people opening doors on coaches and walking onto the live motorway, a clear road safety risk.”
Some 78 public objection comments had been received, along with 1,041 letters in support of the scheme.
The report said: “Objectors report having to plan personal schedules around match days, with significant disruption to social and work commitments.”
The report said significant planning was needed to avoid a delay “which may result in waiting another full football season to be able to commence works beyond the anticipated start date.”
Supporters of the project included Leeds Central and Headingley Labour MP Alex Sobel.
He said in a letter to the council: “The stadium upgrade would create new jobs, drive footfall to local businesses and elevate Leeds as a national and international destination for sport and culture.”
Earlier this year WLD reported on Wortley residents and Leeds United fans attending a drop in event at The Dragon Hotel to explain what the Elland Road expansion proposals will mean for them.
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The social-economic benefit to Leeds will be tens of millions of pounds annually including more tax revenues for Leeds. Include that in the “business case”.
The transport issues are the elephant in the room; Approve Elland Road Expansion anyway.
The greater match day numbers and expansion of loads of different community facilities and greater funding for Leeds United to keep expanding their football academy school outreach days and charity work *Will* outweigh a bit of traffic around the southwest of Leeds.
Especially considering that the Franchised Buses and Weaver Greater Leeds Mass Transit System our Yorkshire Labour Mayor is bringing in will over time when construction finishes be able to greatly reduce the nunber of cars needed to get to match days and West Yorkshire Combined Authority owned Chartered Coaches will reduce the declines in bus use numbers while making it cheaper and ryte more quickly for folk to drive and ride any vehicle around the new improved Elland and w.Yorkshire.
Now someone send that to the party politicians and planning officers and send it as a response to any Vexious complaints put in against Elland Road by mischief makers who hate Our Leeds United doin well for a nice change.
Marching On Together
ALAW
Love Thy Neighbour
Couldn’t agree more! Objectors are like the Anti- Airport brigade who move into an area then complain about ” stuff”. It’s 20-25 events a year for gawd sake.
Councillors need to be stepping up to the challenge not blocking otherwise they’ll have some explaining to do next May.
Exactly. Im always confused by folks ‘wo’ve spent the process time money, energy and effort of moving to a house located next to an airport, and yet babble on acting suprised there’s a few planes flying overhead, like what did people expect?
I’m in favour of the expansion and designs. However there is a wider impact on residents up to 2.5km around the stadium. Namely… traffic, parking, and litter. The Councillors job is to support his residents and back the city so I think he is fair to say the devil will be in the detail at this stage, as long as he doesn’t block the development entirely (which he seems to support when your watch the meeting video on YouTube). Also the drive to have people arrive earlier and stay later might improve the traffic a little (I bet they will try report this as model shift within a window) BUT it will lengthen the parking issues.
I really support the development, but these things do need to be properly considered too… Anyone with a wise head can see that.
I agree with much of what you say. I understand the points made above about people choosing to live near a football stadium etc and the economic benefits to the city, but planning is a quasi-judicial process and has to be decided on whether it meets specific local and national planning policies, including highways. It’s not a matter of ‘well, we fancy this today because it’s good for the city’ or ‘we don’t fancy that today’. The council has an obligation to make a legally sound and policy compliant planning decision. They also have an obligation to ensure things like emergency services have sufficient access.
I don’t live in Wortley and I’m not affected. Broadly speaking I’m in favour of the expansion, but that doesn’t just mean our city fathers should nod it through regardless, as some commenters suggest.
No. That’s a Jobsworth’s mentality which creates red tape, delay, and teams of lawyers paying eachother lots of money to send letters back and forth; where eveything is delayed and some Franz Kafkaesque beuerocracy takes years to make any decisions, sluggish Mandarin Civil servants repeatedly writing Government report after report after study after trial after trial, on traffic dynamics.
That’s abolsute nonsense. Build things, your NIMBY Attitude strangles progress and fair, effective economic development.
You are wrong in your sentiments here. Approve the development and Franchise the Buses.
Bet you support ManU, that’s why you’re focusing on road traffic instead of Leeds Economic Triumph.
Quasi Judicial read Quasi modo looking at some of the developments the planning department do and don’t approve. ER is surrounded by dead brownfield sites has been since I first visited the ground in 1979. We could be on the cusp of transforming environment, services, housing and transport but no play safe mention some anecdotal tosh about pedestrians strewn across the M621 and we can kick the can down the road and continue to watch the stadium slowly decline and the investment sail off South or West…
The Hunchback of Elland Road..? Good reference!
Or quasi-Don Quixote, that would be another adjective to describe these jobsworths political parties who are so scared of slight criticism, theyll let perfectly good projects languish in the planning system untill they die a death of old age and the projects get canceled rather than take a slight bit of criticism.
Most people want the Elland Road Regeneration Project & the billions that will arrive in investment/housebuilding/jobs for Leeds & Wider Yorkshire.
We need leaders who will build up Leeds, not Green Party NIMBY’s who would rather see everyone in Leeds go skint to save the climate or something instead of seeing good projects in Leeds being given full backing.
If the Leeds Green Party actually gave a single flying proverbial about Leeds United, and if Greens had any brains about them- they’d not be haggling over a bit of Traffic and instead they would be showing and thinking of ways this development helps reduce overall car use- for example by being a prime location for WYCA buses to transport folks and workers and football hooligans, I mean football fans to and from Elland Road.
If we Vote for Leeds Greens, they’ll cancel Elland Road stadium upgrades cos the greens hate anything new being build due to “net counterproductive 0” and their Eco-Zealotry Doomsday Prophecies.