Trafford Council has expressed excitement at the prospect of working with Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe on his ambitious plans to regenerate the south of the city.
Ratcliffe has two potential plans in place to provide Manchester United with a stadium which he feels would benefit the club’s status. Old Trafford receives a lot of criticism, but that is because the Glazers left it rot for the past 18 years. The American family never gave it the love it deserved.
While there is a chance that Old Trafford could go under redevelopment, there’s also an option to build a brand-new stadium to rival Wembley’s 90,000-capacity.
One of the strongest arguments for a new stadium is extra revenue generated.
Ratcliffe anticipated redevelopment would cost in the region of £1billion, while a new stadium and regeneration project would cost closer to £2billion. And, unfortunately for Ratcliffe, it doesn’t sound like the government are willing to cover the cost of the bigger project.
Trafford Council leader Tom Ross is excited about the prospect of working with Ratcliffe.
Speaking to BBC Radio Manchester, Ross said (via The Mirror): “We’ve got two visions that are coming together – a potential brand new stadium as discussed by Sir Jim, and also the vision we have for housing regeneration, bringing this area back to life.
“There’s a lot of excitement in Manchester United about this as a key partner of ours. We look forward to working together to deliver those plans.”
It looks like Ratcliffe will move fast to get the stadium issues sorted and we’ll know one way or another which route he is going to take in the near future.
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