Not a choice, rather a necessity. Everton and the Liverpool council both confirmed that Walton Hall Park stadium won’t be built. Two alternatives are presented. Back to the docks after 15 years?

Yesterday the Liverpool City Council and Everton FC released a joint statement regarding the Walton Hall Park project. As it turns out, the scheme announced first in 2014 is not viable due to insufficient commercial potential.

“The proposed scheme at Walton Hall Park was always an ambitious one. It was a regeneration scheme that relied heavily on retail investment into the site. Most of the current investment into retail is focussed on city centres and larger district centres and not on out-of-town developments like this would have been.” the statement reads.

This means, as it’s been all too often over the last 21 years, that Everton are back to the drawing board with relocation plans. Although not entirely so, because two alternative locations were already revealed for the planned modern stadium.

First and perhaps most symbolic is the northern docks site. This area is just a walking distance away from Kings Dock, where Everton were hoping to build their initial waterfront stadium back in 2001, the ambitious one pictured below.

Now the stadium would likely be conjoined or incorporated into a much larger commercial development. Northern docks are earmarked for a series of skyscrapers, though the multi-billion project has been stalled for a couple of years already.

The second option is Stonebridge Cross, roughly 4.5km north-east of Goodison Park, not far away from the abandoned Walton Hall Park. This plot is just beside the A580 and already pre-cleared for a scrapped Amazon warehouse.