A cricket club have tried to calm concerns from neighbours over plans for a football World Cup fanzone.
Sefton Park Cricket Club (SPCC) has lodged an application to Liverpool Council for a premises licence as it proposes to stage two events in the Autumn and Winter in a bid to raise vital funds. Among its proposals is an Oktoberfest-style German beer festival beginning later this month.
The cricket club, which has been situated within the popular South Liverpool park for more than a century, is also proposing to screen matches from the football World Cup to be held in November and December on the Lower Cricket Playing Field towards Mossley Hill Drive. The bid, heard by members of Liverpool Council’s licensing and gambling sub-committee this afternoon, has been scaled down after initial proposals sought to operate until the New Year.
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The club has requested to sell alcohol on site from 10am to 10pm, as well as playing live and recorded music. More than 30 letters of objection were sent to the local authority with the ideas the subject of an online petition, but Stephen Dutton, SPCC safeguarding officer, told councillors that he hoped the community would continue to support the club through its latest venture.
He said the club had been an integral part of the popular park for more than 100 years but currently its overheads are “barely covered” by its members’ fees. Mr Dutton, himself a former cricketer and current coach, said the club had “no money” with a progressive decline over the years but hoped staging these events would “help turn the club’s finances around".
He added: “We’d appreciate the support to keep going for another 150 years.” Edward Grant, speaking on behalf of Chysalis Safety Solutions who have formally submitted the application, said the club hoped to attract around 7,000 people over the course of the Oktoberfest event in seven stages but would realistically expect around 5,000.
Mr Grant, who fielded questions throughout, said a further 3,000 could be held at any one time for the screenings of football matches. He said the applicant “hopes for large attendance during England and Wales matches” but “the same can’t be said for Cameroon v Serbia at 10am.” More than a dozen residents were packed into the Queen Mary conference room at the Cunard Building to hear the committee evidence as Mr Dutton admitted the last time the club staged a large, non-cricketing event - a screening of the Champions League final - it had not gone as planned.
He added that the club wanted to be “open and honest” with the community about its plans but did concede that screening hadn’t been managed correctly. Among those objecting included one resident who called on the committee to "take a stand, be strong, and say no to this" and described it as a "disaster waiting to happen" with concerns raised about underage drinking, vomiting, defecating and drug use around the park.
Another said there are "plenty of other places people can go to watch the football" and places like Lark Lane act as a magnet for those drinking. Andrea Ku, chair of Friends of Sefton Park, said she wasn't against the cricket club and loves people using the park, but said "we just want to have a good legacy" for its next 150 years, not people drinking and littering.
"It's just not cricket," she said. The club’s finances were also called into question by one objector who wasn’t bowled over by the plans and said if SPCC had no money as it claimed, the events may not prove to be a one-off and “we could find ourselves back here again.”
A decision on the licence was not given at the end of the meeting, with Cllr Christine Banks saying stakeholders would be informed of a resolution within five working days.
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