Recently in Liverpool Category

Liverpool Football Club announced plans to increase the capacity of its Anfield stadium this week, from 45,000 to 60,000, writes Simon Binns.

Essentially, the club has joined an already existing partnership between the local council and housing association Your Housing, who are carrying out a £25m redevelopment programme around the stadium.

Anfield is a rare thing in terms of modern top flight stadia - tightly surrounded by residential streets in an era where the trend has been to build new out of town structures while the old site is sold, invariably for new housing. Several of those neighbouring streets will have to go, however, to accommodate Liverpool's own £150m DIY project.

The club claims the local community and home owners are 'supportive' of the proposed expansion. If they look further down the M62 however, they will need to take heed of the problems faced by the club that Liverpool - and the rest of the Premier League - are trying to catch.

The 'money no object' approach of Manchester City, now owned by Abu Dhabi's seemingly bottomless sovereign wealth fund, has brought success on the pitch. It has also brought forward hugely ambitious plans for a £100m training academy and campus around its Etihad Stadium, similar to that of Barcelona's Nou Camp, on an 80-acre site that used to be a gas works.

The community engagement programme carried out by the club was some of the slickest and thorough I've ever seen. Yet the club still had to spend six months negotiating with a truculent local landowner, resulting in a compulsory purchase order and unwanted media attention.

Shaun O'Brien, owner of OB Truck Services, took on the ruling family of Abu Dhabi, dividing up land he owned around the stadium into 5,000 individual sq ft plots to try and disrupt any CPO attempt. He claimed the club refused to 'negotiate reasonably' and priced the plots at £250 each.

Manchester City Council claimed O'Brien was trying to hold the land - and the club - to ransom. The CPO was finally granted in August.

Liverpool has already referenced the 'complex planning landscape' around a redevelopment such as this. Putting a loft conversion in is one thing - making room for an extra 15,000 to regularly come into the area is quite another.

Another factor is success on the pitch. Will Fenway ultimately invest in their franchise if Liverpool continue to drift away from the top four or five clubs?

If Liverpool do take anything from Manchester City though, it should be that while sensitivity will win you friends, ultimately, hardball will take out your enemies. On and off the pitch.

Simon Binns is Estates Gazette's north of England correspondent
Picture by Ben Sutherland on Flickr

Knight Frank released its amusingly named ROMP report yesterday (that's Regional Office Market Presentation - just don't google ROMP on its own on your office computer - well maybe a colleagues) in which it compares and contrasts the market performance in 11 regional cities around the UK. 

It's a meaty 100 page report but the National Survey of Local Shopping Centre's and CBRE's new research on changes to shopping catchment populations for comparison goods may cause some indigestion. That is, if you are a developer, agent or local authority that has ever sat back and said: 'Of course that new shopping centre development can only benefit the wider area.'

It seems Manchester is back to work despite a lot of predominantly retail property being damaged during last night's rioting in the city centre.

Bruntwood, central Manchester's largest office landlord, has reported around 20 incidents at 11 buildings in the Piccadilly area of the city and chief executive Chris Oglesby has stated that the firm is working with tenants to get them up and running again.

One property company which was directly affected was Sanderson Weatherall, which saw three windows at its Spring Gardens office smashed as a fierce attack on a next door Sainsbury's store spilled over.

Tim Catterall from Sanderson Weatherall told me that nobody from the firm was hurt and that his Manchester colleagues have told him that the council had cleared up debris before they arrived for work.

It seems that city's shops have taken the brunt of the looters' vandalism. Most notably, the Miss Selfridge store on the busy Market Street shopping drag was set alight during the late afternoon, as caputured on video.

The main shopping streets affected seem to be Market Street, St Ann's Square, Deansgate and the upmarket King Street. In the latter, former Oasis singer Liam Gallagher's new boutique, Pretty Green was ransacked, and the Bang & Olufsen electronics store was broken into and cleared out.

The city's main shopping scheme, PRUPIM and Capital Shopping Centres' Arndale centre was also hit, with footage showing youths raiding the Foot Asylum store.

The worst of the rioting and disorder, as witnessed in London on Monday night, has spread to England's cities with Manchester and Birmingham seeing the most damage and disruption.

Manchester
The Business Desk North West reports on how retailers from big chains, to independents and high end fashion were targeted in the city.

The Manchester Evening News reports on how Salford and Manchester descended into chaos.

And here is an eye witness account from local news service BlottR

The Manchester clean up operation organised via Twitter has already started @RiotCleanUpManc

Birmingham
It was a second night of disorder for the city with many shops shutting up early.

Our Midlands Editor Lisa Pilkington was tweeting updates through into the early ours and you can catch up with her Tweets @EGLisaP

Business Desk West Midlands reports on the tragic deaths of three men and how violence spread from the city centre to Wolverhampton and West Bromwich

The Birmingham Post reports on a city centre that shut down early and has details of the events that followed.

Redbrick the Birmingham's student paper has a time line of events from the two days with comments and Twitter feed.

Liverpool
Violence flared again in the city and spreading to the Wirral. The Liverpool Echo has a report and pictures.

The Liverpool Post also reports on how the violence centred on Smithdown Road once again.

Nottingham
The East Midlands city saw its first night of violence with the Victoria Centre coming under attack according to This is Nottingham they also have an eye witness account from the Kelham Green area of the city

Reactions from those areas outside London affected by the riots last night:

Bristol:
Eye witness accounts and reactions for businesses affected from This Is Bristol
Pictures of the damage: Small World News Service

Liverpool:
Report and pictures from the Liverpool Echo and an eye witness account

Birmingham:
Picture slide show from the Birmingham Post plus full report and eyewitness account
And news of the Twitter-led clean up campaign in Birmingham

On EGi news:
Bristol riots hit Cabot Circus
Mailbox attacked as rioting spreads to Birmingham
BPF fears for SME's properties following riots