Freeman street

I mean it’s great if people think there’s a big pot of money that appeared on 13th Dec that the club are just going to dip into, but the reality is a bit more complicated. The majority of the Town Deal funding is already earmarked for specific areas -

https://assets.publishing.serv.....n_deal_agreement.pdf


Shutes is already involved in the second phase of the Town Deal (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/grimsby-regeneration-kickstarted-with-multi-million-pound-boost) but how that focus on reimagining heritage assets links into a club relocation remains to be seen. Think it’s too much of a stretch personally. Even the much-feted Future High Streets fund evaporates quite quickly when you get into the detail.

So it comes back to the question of private investment. It’ll be great if some materialises, nobody has a clue one way or another if there’s anything happening but you’d hope that the portfolio holder for regeneration would be well placed in this regard. If private funding doesn’t materialise then expect any plans to be heavily contested locally, you only have to look at the comments on the Grimsby Live pages to see that not everyone in the town shares our enthusiasm for the club so if people are seeing their council tax going to build the Fentydome you can expect some significant pushback and we as fans will be expected to fight the club’s corner locally.

Quoted from gtfcmd

don't shoot me down I want to move grounds as much as everybody else but I still think freeman street not the best idea for a stadium, doesn't look big enough for a start and with all the football traffic its going to be a nightmare around there, yes you got parking for fans down the side streets, would be nice to move to new stadium after all the years of going on and on about it

With a little bit more demolition it will be big enough , it’s the ideal site imo it could possibly rejuvenate the east marsh beyond belief

JF himself acknowledges that the previous Red council leader backed the relocation (or relo as he put it, being involved in it over three decades now...).

Impossible to have this discussion without it becoming politically charged.

Freeman St is the best area, plenty of clubs around the world have built stadia in those sorts of places, regenerating the areas and encouraging businesses to open and flourish.

We’re not planning on building Wembley so the space is plenty big enough and throughout the development, the council and the club should be working with travel companies and actively encouraging public transport use. Worrying about parking etc shouldn’t even be worth the time.

The overall value of the area would increase and a new stadium provides much more than simply a nice place to play football. Sadly, my fear is that I genuinely don’t believe there’s anyone at the club who could deliver on a project like this.

So many missed opportunities so far regarding the promotion of such a stadium, coupled with the poor relationship with local media and amateur events and presentations (remember the PowerPoint presentations with the phrase Dull City) to promote the idea. Similarly, the club are woeful at promoting the wider benefits of such a project, the impact on the community in terms of jobs, hosting corporate events and providing learning opportunities and education support...which personally are far more impactful than saying it provides a good place to play football.

Locally we have an issue with plenty in the community with an insular view, a view and opinion developed through falsified information online and on social media. Limited knowledge or desire to find out about developments of this magnitude elsewhere in the country and the world. Christ, look at the flipping female dog fit people had when they suggested, and rightly so, sea view street.

The club also needs to have some balderdash to a point and state some facts. GTFC is the only reason every fortnight a large gathering of folk descend on one place, other than armed forces day this never happens locally. The club can be and should be the heart of the community and Freemo can be the site to do that.

How it will be funded, god only knows...

Tory government needs to win votes in NELincs so promises regeneration money. I get that, albeit somewhat cynically. It’s what the council do with it that’s crucial- whether it’s East Marsh regeneration or a flipping 70 metre palm tree at the end of the prom.

I’m addition to what I’ve just said, I honestly believe some wider involvement with marketing professionals would help promote the idea and vision.

Relying on the fans should not even be an option, I mean this is the same club that generally holds its fans in contempt but fans simply aren’t enough.

Let’s not forget, at the ill fated public meetings for PP local folk were pulling out copies of the sports telegraph from yesteryear referring to stories based on zero fact about rock concerts etc.

Towns like Grimsby have high proportions of folk who worry about change (they moan the place is dying but don’t want change), they believe the click bait nonsense they read on pointless Facebook groups and the excrement telegraph website. They believe that all football fans are hooligans and this will simply be a scourge on the town.

Some of that has been caused by the clubs lack of forethought and commercial ability, some simply by people who are frightened by this sort of thing.

Let’s not forget, this is a town that cry arsed because they changed some paving in town, moaned about pedestrianisation of a street that should’ve been done years ago. A town where the bus station was moved. People moaned. They’re moving it back. People moaned.

Fact is, if the magic money tree doesn’t appear, which it won’t, then the council is likely to want to invest, folk will need convincing especially when all people moan about is bin collections and blue badges. There needs to be clarity and vision that is understandable, sustainable and evidence based to show the wider impact it can and will have.  

Freemo is THE site.  It's almost too good to be true.  An area that needs regenerating, no NIMBYs at all (which is a miraculous scenario when looking at new build projects), a council that is all for it......

It cannot be denied that the previous red council did NOTHING to push this along, in fact they derailed it time and time again (I'm mainly talking Great Coates and Peaks Parkway here).

As for the argument earlier that parking and access would be a nightmare, the only solution to this is to have an out-of-town ground, like Great Coates, but that option is DEAD, and actually has (or had) nowhere near the support that the Freemo one has.

Where the money comes from, I simply do not know, but this is a better position than we've had before.

After years of nothing I still cannot help but think this whole thing is still a pipedream, but dream we must.  It's crucial for the survival of the club, and the much needed progress we've lacked for decades.

If we ever move into a nice new ground with character (his last item is a must, I feel), I don't mind telling you that I will probably cry tears of joy at the first game!  It would mean so much to me and to so many others.

Quoted from Civvy at last

Can we stop this becoming a political thread before it even starts (unless it's actually how it relates to GTFC).

And yes I do know that JF started it.  

While I do agree that this has to stop being a political thread, the very nature of the proposed ground and JF being a Conservative Councillor make it impossible to avoid it. Every time JF speaks publicly about the new ground he has to declare his involvement with the club and his political position by being involved in NE Lincs regeneration. The statement he made concerning "a blue Lincolnshire, with a blue Central Government" is very relevant. If both are pulling together to get more investment into Northern areas, like NE Lincs, that have been left behind by previous administrations then that must be a good thing.

I don't like the reference to that Notts County bloke being one of the two possible takeover options mentioned by Fenty in the article in todays Telewag,
I thought he had killed that rumour off in his last message to us all.
I hope he sticks to his date of mid-January to cut off both the Dodds and Shute's plans and decides somehow to go it alone on the new ground
I was happy that Fenty wouldn't hand the club over to anyone not satisfying his conditions, but even mentioning the Notts County geezer worries me

Half the problem is people living in a fantasy world, like one of the posts above, it’s just absolutely deluded - why does anything think it’s helpful?

I’m not arsed what “colour” NE Lincs council is, I’ve not lived there for 13 years and won’t be back, but it’s bizarre to say that the last administration hadn’t been at least some help in helping the club relocate. They handed over a massive site at PP essentially for free and gave the club years of exclusivity for them to get themselves together and put something feasible on the table.

Claiming that the current Council are “all for it”...all for what? A broad agreement that the area needs regenerating? The idea of putting a stadium there? Based on what? Fantasy land.

People need to get real if this ground is ever going to happen, and blaming NIMBYs, the council, Henry Boot, great crested newts, Tom Shutes and whoever else for the club’s failings will not do that. We can’t live in this state of perpetual victimhood.