Marine reveal 'exciting' ￡8m stadium plan | 'This is a cry from the heart' say teachers as they walk out on strike

By Dan Haygarth | 04/02/25

Hello,

Yesterday I was at a press briefing at Marine FC’s current stadium on College Road in Crosby, as I heard about plans for a new stadium in Thornton, which were revealed to the public today. You can read my report on a momentous move for the club below.

Liam Thorp has been on the picket line at Gateacre School with striking teachers for the first of what could be numerous days of industrial action. Liam also has written a column about ongoing issues at Liverpool Central Station, which you can read in full below.

Thanks for reading.

Marine reveal 'exciting' plans for new ￡8m stadium outside of Crosby

Marine FC have revealed plans for a new 5,000 capacity stadium. The National League North team have played at their current ground Rossett Park, known as the Marine Travel Arena for sponsorship reasons, on College Road in Crosby for more than 100 years but they have now shared their plans to build a new stadium to a 8.32 acre site on Edge Lane in Thornton.

The stadium, designed by Crosby-based architects Diaz Associates, would be delivered in partnership with property company Bellway Homes as part of a wider 30-acre development on the land on Edge Lane. Marine have acquired 8.32 acres for ￡1 to allow for the construction of the stadium.

Bellway plans to build 250 homes on the remaining 22 acres and will invest ￡2.5m towards the overall ￡8m required for stadium build. The project is subject to funding being secured by Marine and Sefton Council's approval of a planning application for the homes and the stadium itself.

Marine wish to retain their College Road site as a community hub and sports centre. However, the Marine Travel Arena only has stands for spectators on three sides and its run off areas (a safety boundary that runs around the perimeter of the football pitch) are limited, which the club said led them to looking for a site for a new home ground.

The club's Thornton plans include the 5,000 capacity stadium, car parking, a 20-bed hotel incorporated into its main stand, a gym, a bar, hospitality area and a community health hub, featuring provision for a doctors, dentist and mental health nurse.

The club hope the stadium complex will form the heart of the new housing project developed by Bellway and are aiming for construction to begin in 2027, with a full planning application expected to be submitted later this year.

Marine's CEO James Leary told the ECHO: "I'm really excited - it's been something that we've been working on for a long, long time as a football club. It's something that, I'll be honest, at one stage I wasn't sure we would be able to get to this point and get land secured because we tried for so many different locations.

"You get so many knockbacks and at times it feels like it's not going to happen. We've got a really good relationship with the landowner that we secured the land with, a really good relationship with Bellway Homes and it's just an exciting and unique opportunity for Marine Football Club that we need to try and make a reality."

Marine's fortunes were transformed by a fairy-tale FA Cup third round tie against Tottenham Hotspur in January 2021. The game was played behind closed doors due to lockdown restrictions at the time but it became a huge revenue driver for Marine, with 32,202 virtual tickets sold.

Since that game, the club have enjoyed two promotions and have seen their average attendance rise from 350 to 1,400. Marine have also invested heavily at the Marine Travel Arena, installing a 4G pitch and opening the 1894 Bar & Bistro.

Reflecting on the past four years, Mr Leary said: "Generally, as a football club, you get a lot more lows than highs. But over the last five years we've been promoted twice, we had the FA Cup run when we got to the third round against Spurs.

"We've had two more FA Cup runs - once we got to the first round proper and played Harrogate, we've had probably half a dozen sell outs in the last two or three years.

"It's been an incredible journey on the pitch and off the pitch, with the expansion of Marine In The Community. We started that in 2019, we're not Everton, we're not Liverpool, but even though we're a smaller club, why can't we look to benefit and to help local people in the same way they do?

"Everything at the moment has hit us at the same time and built this wave, which carries on growing. If we can make this ground a reality, then that wave will continue. We've got big challenges, we've got to get through planning and then we need to raise the rest of the funds to build a ground.

"They're both going to be tough asks and that's why we're relying on the community and different people to get involved and get behind the project."

The club are looking for avenues to fund the ￡8m project, adding to the ￡2.5m pledged by Bellway. Mr Leary said the club are looking at a number of grants and they have ongoing discussions with Sefton Council, but they also have a crowdfunding campaign in process. To read the full article, click here.

'This is a cry from the heart' say teachers as they walk out on strike

Teachers at a Liverpool school said they were performing a "cry from the heart" as they walked out on strike today. Large numbers of staff gathered outside Gateacre School in south Liverpool today for the first of what could be numerous days of industrial action.

The crowds carried placards and signs and were met with supportive honks from passing motorists. Staff represented by two teaching unions - the NEU and the NASUWT - voted in favour of strike action over a number of issues at the school including workloads, management practices and claims from some of a culture of "bullying and fear".

Speaking at the picket line today, English teacher and NEU workplace representative Nicholas Hunt told the ECHO: "The things we have balloted on are excessive workloads, some adverse management practices that include things like micro-management as well as poor communications and stress - which has been leading to quite a lot of staff departures, some mid-year, with staff leaving with stress and just not coming back.

"That causes quite a lot of pain to our school community. This is the kind of school where staff send their own kids. The kind of place where students come back as staff. The conversion to an academy has been quite protracted, quite stressful and one of the big things we want to get out of this is a trade union recognition agreement so we can have better consultation mechanisms.

He added: "We have had a lot of issues that we want to be able to resolve together in a proper formal forum. You can see that people feel strongly here and that's because they want to stay. We all care about this school."

Support staff representative Robin Finch said: "This has been a massive stress. A lot of staff have been conflicted about being on strike, but they feel like this is something that they need to do to show that we are not going to move on these points unless there is some sort of negotiation.

"We want people to understand that we really care about the school, the kids that come here and their education. This wasn't an easy decision for us. We have all come to work today dressed ready for work because we are ready to go back into work if they will negotiate with us."

The initial news that teachers were voting on strike action last month prompted a huge response from parents of children at the school, with many getting in touch with the ECHO to raise a range of concerns about how the school is being run, and others stating their support for the work of current headteacher Nabil Jamil, who they say is trying to turn things around at an underperforming establishment.

Mr Jamil joined the school last year as Gateacre began transitioning away from local authority control. It recently formally became part of the Northern Schools Trust, which also includes the North Liverpool Academy and Liverpool Life Sciences TUC.

Prior to that transition being completed, previous headteacher Gareth Jones stepped down following a less than impressive Ofsted report, which deemed that the school required improvement.

Staff and union representatives today said the action was not about any individual and was more geared towards the leaders of the trust running the school.

Brian McConnell, national executive member for Merseyside and Cheshire for the NASUWT said: "Sadly we are here today because the Northern Schools Trust has been doing some appalling practices to the staff. Intimidation, bullying, workload issues and they don't recognise trade unions so that we can sit down with them and negotiate.

"Historically the school has not done as well as it perhaps should have and we don't have an issue with someone coming in wanting to make the school better. We want to help with that and there needs to be open communication with the unions.

"The staff want to be part of the dialogue and not have the dialogue done to them. To be fair to the headteacher and senior leadership they have tried to engage and I don't think they are necessarily the problem, it is the people above them that are causing the issues and not allowing this dispute to be resolved."

Liam Thorp: I travelled through Liverpool Central Station this weekend and was dismayed

There is something I absolutely love about heading into Liverpool Central train station at the weekend. It is a location that I associate with the start of fun days out - whether that is from touring various pubs with friends in my youthful past or these days taking my baby son to the great museums and attractions of Liverpool - before then heading to the aforementioned pubs.

Put simply, Liverpool Central on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon is a place buzzing with life, a place packed with excited chatter as throngs of shoppers and day-trippers head through the bustling facility and on to sample everything our brilliant and unique city centre has to offer.

The station is a crucial gateway to the city centre but sadly, in recent times, it has not been in a condition befitting such an important responsibility.

I can't remember the last time I ventured through the station without there being some sort of infrastructure-related problem. Buckets collecting leaking rainwater have become a semi-permanent fixture on the platforms and broken lifts and escalators are now as common as news that a delayed train will be helpfully running directly to its final destination and skipping your stop along the way.

This weekend I, like thousands of other people, made my way into the city centre with my wife and toddler to soak up the amazing atmosphere provided by the city's Lunar New Year celebrations - a proud and important day in the calendar for Liverpool's Chinese community - the oldest in Europe.

Now maybe this is a genuine sign that I am now old and boring - but I was actually left dismayed by the state of the city centre station at a time when so many visitors were using it to access our city.

Having caught the train from the south of the city, we alighted at Central with my little lad in a pram and set our sights on the main lift to the concourse only to find it frustratingly out of action, with a barrier blocking its doors and a yellow cone placed in front of it.

This was particularly frustrating for us as we knew it would lead us to the older lift at the end of the platform. This is a piece of machinery so outstandingly ineffective that it is almost impressive. I have lost years of my life waiting for that lift to arrive.

Anyway as the lift finally opened its doors at the speed of erosion and welcomed us into the main station I noticed that this was not the only troubling defect on display at the station.

The escalators taking people down to the Wirral Line platform were out of use and joining them were the escalators for the Northern Line platforms as well. To add to the fun, one of the ticket barriers relied on to allow the huge crowds of people to exit the station was also broken.

One could have been forgiven for thinking the array of yellow and black tape on display at the station on Sunday was an extension of Merseyrail's famous branding but alas, it was merely a symbol of what appears to be a decaying piece of infrastructure in the heart of our city centre.

I mention Merseyrail only because the operator's name and colour schemes are everywhere to be seen at Liverpool Central Station, but this can be confusing when it comes to who is responsible for the state of the place. While Merseyrail runs the trains that arrive and depart from the station and employs the staff that check your tickets and sell you the odd sandwich - it is Network Rail that owns the station itself and is responsible for the building's maintenance as well as the track infrastructure.

With that in mind I contacted Network Rail in my capacity as a local journalist and all around public transport bore to try and ascertain when any of these problems at one of our city's main thoroughfare's may be sorted out.

Network Rail spokesperson said: ‘We’re sorry for the disruption caused to passenger journeys through Liverpool Central station recently. One escalator is currently out of service, but we aim to have it fixed by tonight (February 3). The new station lift is also down, and contractors are working hard to restore it as soon as possible. The original lift further along the platform remains operational for step free access.

“We are sorry also for having buckets out collecting water. This is not the level of customer service we know our passengers deserve. We are currently seeking specialist advice from a structural waterproofing expert to assess the situation and identify the most effective long-term solutions.

“One contributing factor is the rising groundwater table in Liverpool, which presents ongoing challenges for managing water ingress in some of the oldest underground infrastructure in the country.

"We are actively working to mitigate the impact, but due to the complexity of the issue, a thorough assessment and tailored solution are required. We apologise for any inconvenience this is causing to passengers and appreciate their patience while we work to resolve the issue.”

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