Stadium 4 Belfast in the Daily View
13th April 2005
Henry McDonald has a weekly column in Belfast's new daily paper, the Daily View. In today's column, he argues that the Maze is no place for a new sports stadium and that, as we all know, it was only chosen because it was the cheapest option.
He questions whether or not supporters will actually make the journey to the new stadium, points out the lack of nearby amenities (including the 'City' of Lisburn's lack of a hotel) and the fact that "at present there is no integrated form of public transport to take people from population centres ... to the isolated, out-of-the-way backwater that is the Maze."
He goes on to say that there is an alternative which "happens to be in a place called Belfast," before mentioning the "rational case" put forward by "an organisation called Stadium 4 Belfast." Thanks Henry! He seems to favour the North Foreshore as a venue, and this would certainly be preferable to the Maze site. He believes that if the Maze/Long Kesh site has a future, it should be as a site for affordable housing for first time buyers.
McDonald finishes his article by pointing out that "the Maze/Long Kesh was a monument to the failure of Northern Ireland politics." and that it any stadium built on its site, would likely become a monument to the "chronic failure in the imagination of our NIO overlords".
The Daily View is a daily (Mon-Fri) paper on sale in Greater Belfast covering local issues, and for the most part ignoring the traditional 'Orange and Green politics' in Northern Ireland. Henry McDonald is the Ireland correspondent for the Observer.
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