Denham rejects Tesco/Everton’s Kirkby regeneration scheme

  Secretary of state John Denham has rejected Everton Football Club and Tesco’s plans for a £400m regeneration of Kirkby, Merseyside, which include a 50,000-seat stadium for the club.   The development has been blocked on the grounds that it would contradict policy to discourage nationwide chains from taking business from the local community and small retailers.   As well as a new stadium for Everton, Tesco had planned to build a new 110,000 sq ft superstore alongside 540,000 sq ft of retail and leisure, creating a new town centre across 80 acres of Kirkby.   The scheme was called in by the government in August 2008, a month after Knowlsey council granted planning consent.   Neighbouring Liverpool council announced that it regarded the scheme as a threat to Grosvenor’s Liverpool One, and declared that the scale of the stadium development was “not appropriate to the role and function” of Kirkby, a town of around 40,000 people. Other local councils in the conurbation agreed.   Everton has been trying to move from Goodison Park, its north Liverpool home since 1892, for around a decade. In 2003 plans for a new stadium at King’s Dock south of Liverpool city centre were turned down. This latest plan would have seen the club, which was formed in 1878, move out of its home city of Liverpool.   Robert Elstone, Everton’s chief executive, warned that the club would sink into the bottom half of the Premier League over the next decade if the scheme was rejected.   He said clubs with great facilities or billionaire-backers would occupy the top of the table.   daniel.cunningham@estatesgazette.com