Jamie Carragher is looking to open Melwood up to the public as soon as possible after planning approval was granted for the site’s redevelopment earlier this week.
Torus bought the site for an undisclosed fee from Liverpool Football Club back in 2019, following the Reds’ move to a new £50m facility in Kirkby next to their Academy. And on Tuesday, the not-for-profit trust were granted approval to build hundreds of new bungalows and care units on the site of Liverpool's former training ground.
However, the existing infrastructure will be repurposed to form the Robbie Fowler and Jamie Carragher Football Education Academy.
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And speaking exclusively to the ECHO, Carragher opened up about what the future holds for Melwood after planning approval was granted as he reiterated his desire to give back to the local community..
“It’s absolutely fantastic. We’ve been waiting for a while now,” he said. “The planning permission for Torus and the houses just means we can really kick on now with our own plans for Melwood. We managed to save half the site and thankfully the most important half.
“It feels so long ago that we were celebrating being back involved at Melwood. Now is almost a milestone moment, and we can really move forward and crack on with what we’d like to do in the future and what we said at the outset for why we’re getting involved and what we want to achieve.
“Massive credit to Torus who could have just demolished the whole thing but luckily they gave us the chance to save the most iconic bits of the site.
“It’s not just the housing, The 23 Foundation are based here and along with the Academy will have a huge role to play. At times we help the ex-players here. It is an iconic place and that will never change.
“Even now, coming here and looking at the pitches, all frozen over, takes me back to being a player where you’d train in weather like this. It would be great to let people in and experience it, show people around. Maybe have the ex-players come back, and share their memories as well.”
He continued: “Something had to be here for the community. It couldn’t just all be housing. The situation with myself and Robbie getting back involved gives it that link to what it’s always been famous for really, this patch of land for Liverpool Football Club.
“It’s nice that there’s still football involvement here as well. I’m pretty sure we’ll put a 3G pitch on the site in the near future. That will be for use of the Academy, and I’m sure it will be for outside use and community use as well.
“We want it open to the public as soon as possible! That’s why it feels like we’ve been stuck in the mud a little bit where it hasn’t moved on too much because we’ve been waiting for different things to be in place.
“But I think with the news of getting the planning permission in the last few days, that will accelerate all the plans and ideas that we’ve got.”
To keep up to date with the Journey or for general enquiries about Melwood’s redevelopment, visit thisismelwood.com.
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