 Welcome to Toffy TV, momentous day, momentous day in evidence history, not only have we appointed a world-class manager to take the club forward, we've also submitted our planning application for a world-class stadium, look at it, it's absolutely beautiful. I'm joined by John Blaine-Shaman of the Everton Shareholds of the Association, also a key part of Everton Business Matters podcast and a regular on Toffy TV as well. John, John, it's cool isn't it? The day is before us, the day has happened which we've, as you've sat in, a lot of briefings like we have all the way through and we've talked about this day, going forward that day is here, having submitted planning permission for a 52,000 seater stadium on the banks of the Royal Blue Masy, feels good. It's cool, yeah, I think it's good that the clubs walk the talk, I mean technically they've done exactly what they said they were going to do, planning application before the end of the year. Despite people thinking oh, it's going to be January and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, really pleased. The stuff that came, well we saw some pressurally stuff last night and we saw the images, which that's a brand new one with the Everton thing gone, makes it look better, so Ped got his way, they listened to your Ped. You didn't like that Everton? Yeah, they listened to you mate, and then the fly-byte stuff that shows the Concourse area doesn't it across there? It's all great, yeah. I mean there is some subtle changes, which are nice and there's more detail, the tram lines and stuff in the fan park bit and like you say the Concourse area. Moving the multi-storey carparks. The multi-storey carparks have moved, so it looks like it's part of the structure now, which I think is really good, but that Concourse bit you talked about in the CGI fly-bytes. That's in the south stand. Which is in the south, which looks brilliant with the glass, but the width of it and the bar and people sitting off. And I imagine it's probably like that all up, not necessarily with the glass view behind you, but the wideness of the Concourse, they're going to create kind of street bar food, that kind of feel to it, which they've said when we've had the briefings and such. So it is really exciting. I mean this period now, Everton have done all they can haven't they up to now. So it's now it's a little bit of limbo isn't it? It's waiting for, I mean what do you foresee like time scale wise? Without obviously just guessing aren't you? Yeah, but it's how long is a piece of string isn't it? I mean what the club have always said rightly so is that from now on it's outside of their hands isn't it? Because it goes into the planning process and presumably the Secretary of State might look at it and those sorts of things. But tick done it from the club's perspective until they get some feedback I suppose. I mean the statutory period for answering our planning application is 16 weeks. So April then? Is that 16 weeks from now? Probably a bit less. Probably end of March maybe. March, April. Clearly that might be, we don't like it, do it again. It might be, we're happy with it but somebody over there has complained and the Secretary of State is going to look at it or it might be off you go. All things are possible I suppose. So let's wait and see really. I think when I've met with the clubs, certainly when the shareholders associations have met with the club, I ask questions and I suppose in some respects they make it easy for them to answer them. But they're anticipating a response sometime between February, March and July which is quite a broad window. And that's related to what goes on with World Heritage and stuff where the city's got to do what it's got to do by February. UNESCO will say what they're going to say sometime in July I think and our decision will be somewhere in between hopefully. And then after that it's build the damn thing so it'll be cool with it. Yeah, I mean, you know, like you say, I've been a pain to say in the briefings we've had that they've tried to look at it from every angle. They've had people going through it, you know, legal people looking at it, looking at which angle the plan has come down on or if it does go to the Secretary of State. So that they've been able to ward off those concerns by doing over and above what they've needed to do. So that if, you know, certainly with the public consultation and stuff like that, there's a lot of things they'll have dealt with in that as well. So that if it does go to the government to be called in, it probably will possibly. No, it's inevitable. So they'll look at it and if you've got answers to what their concerns are because you've done more work than you need it to, which is essentially whatever. That should be quite a smooth process. If someone says I've got more about this and you can go well actually there's the data for that. And there's the data. I think some people get hung up about some of these things because we're not planning experts are we? No, no. And so getting called in makes people think, oh my God, it's Kirby, it's a public inquiry, that takes forever and those sorts of things. That calling in can be something as simple as Secretary of State gets his folder or her folder out, has a look at it and goes, Liverpool think this is a good idea. That's what they're objecting to dismiss that or agree or whatever off you go. So it doesn't have to be forever. But I think we've said this here, I think, and we've certainly said it on everything business matters. The whole intention of this slowish, methodical cover all the basis type approach we've had is to front load all the work to ease the planning decision. Of course, yeah. Rather than get into a situation where you're chucking a half-baked planning applicant or even a good one, but as you say, don't go the extra mile. And then you have to answer all those questions. So you rather hope, and this is the intention, that every goddamn question that Historic England, if that's what they're still called, Historic England or UNESCO or the Liverpool city region or the city council itself, everyone who might want to ask questions has already asked them. And with 60 odd thousand survey results to play with, we certainly know what the citizens think. Yeah, of course. And all that good stuff. And therefore you end up hopefully putting before the planning committee a portfolio that says, there you go, that's our application. And in there is every goddamn question anyone could possibly ask. And we've answered them. Yeah. And therefore you hopefully accelerate or make it easy for them to make a decision. And I just think hopefully that'll get done quite quickly, maybe in government processes quite quickly as those two or three, four months. And then you're just into that last hurdle of whether there'll be a central government objection or listening to objections from other organisations. And then we're into building the thing, assuming the money's in place. Well, come on to the money in a minute. I mean, from that survey, obviously everything was 90 odd pack, 90s for even non-editon fans, Liverpool fans who filled it in, mostly 98% were in favour of it. So when you go down to Bramley Moon, anyone who doesn't know the area, there's nothing there. Does anyone listen to your show that? Nothing. No, there'll be people abroad who probably won't have it. I mean, we've done a video a while ago. Point people at the video that you did. But around there, there's nothing going on there. So in my opinion, it will be very difficult to not grant evidence and planning permission. And what it will do is totally regenerate that area of talking, up to 15,000 jobs. It's the book end, none of the city. It will start the regeneration process going back to the new ferry terminal as part of the 10th Street development. It goes back. So, you know, town then. I'll tell you what I was looking at. You were looking for some. I will tell you what it is in a second. But it stretches the whole of town as well and regenerate. So it's a fantastic opportunity for the city. Yes, I'm going to say that because I'm an Evertonian on Instagram. But it also, listen, if we had a new, if our stadium had been rebuilt and it was great, and Liverpool were going down there, you'd go, yeah, good for the city if it's going to create jobs and everything else. So it is what it is. You have to look past that sometimes. But I think it'd be very difficult for anybody to question it and not grant it. You see, because otherwise it's what you're happy with. A derelict area then. Is that to be right? You know, not a long debate on Twitter this morning with this guy. And that's what I was looking for. Oh, OK. Yeah. And I said something and he had a bit of a laugh. But he finished off and said, yeah, I guess so. I'm just looking forward to the Liverpool Waters project getting rushed along off the back of it. Oh, well. So this is a guy who wants clearly this to happen to actually deliver. To kickstart the rest of it. What Denise and the club have been saying, which is we kickstart, you know, the whole redevelopment of that area, Liverpool Waters, you know, accelerates. Yeah, yeah. God knows how many streets are involved now going in in Latin and so on and so forth. What is his name? Darren Underscore LFC. Yeah. So that's a Liverpool fan. Yeah, yeah. And there's thousands who've done the survey. Yeah. So it's the city wants this to happen. Yeah. And, you know, in the middle of Liverpool this morning, Joe Anderson, you know, he said, this is great for Everton. Mementos Day sort of thing. But it's great for the city as well. So clearly Liverpool City Council minimally in the guys of, OK. And he's going to get some stick because he's never Tony. But Steve Rotherham's fully behind it as the LC Armour. And he's a red. This is not optional. It's almost mandatory, you know. And so no disrespect to anybody. But, you know, if we end up with some pure-out objections about we've got a wall that's a few miles long and you can't put holes in it to let people in and out when we're talking about hundreds of millions of... A wall that was built to stop Theven. Getting in, yeah. It wasn't built as any architectural... Is to keep people out, yeah. You know, and so on. Then they just look at that, don't they? I've caught listening. Is that lifting the area, yes or no? Yes. And if everything between that and, I don't know, pick, you know, the terminal or something, gets filled in with whatever, offices, retail, you know, properties. Develop the whole waterfront. It's tremendous. And it's fantastic. The city. And even our colleagues next door here. Oh, yeah. The latter. Fully supportive. The Chief Executive Liverpool Football Club supportive. You've got a shape, you know. You've got Peter Moore sharing it. It's got to happen. It's got to happen. It becomes a very no-brainer-type thing, you know. And let's make sure that The Everton Way gets rewritten to mean success. And this is a when, not an if. And up to today, it was all if, wasn't it? You know, we would easily say, wouldn't we, people in conversations, if we submit the planning application on time. If this happens, if that happens, if the other happens. You know, people like Mo, and the other people, and Colleen, who've been working. Mo's done a tremendous job doing all the PR and making, you know, getting out with the roadshow, which some people laughed at. What's all that about? Well, what that's about is getting 60,000 people to do a survey of which a big chunk of them don't give a damn about our football club. But they all give a damn about our city, you know. And it's one of the great cities in the world. And that thing will draw attention to it. It really will. It really will say. So it's when it gets built, not if. It has to be. When the planning permission is granted. There you go. That's good. You don't even say if it's when it gets granted. I'd just love to know who on a planning committee in this city is going to stick their hand up and say no. No, it's not a chance. I've got, honest to God, I'm 100% convinced that it's going to go through without anything. I'll cave that, Billy. I think the audience should be as well. I'm convinced and I'm going to stay positive about it. Just finally, you mentioned it before the finance thing. How evident of Denise again on she's done an interview, obviously, to a company with the planning application. And a narrative for it as well. And she said we haven't revealed our financial thing because we'll do that once planning permission is granted. I mean, have you got any concerns about the finances of it? Because I know that at first it seemed very likely it was going to be the council. Not for a long time, though. But then that changed. People weren't happy with that in the city despite the fact that it would have brought us £7 million every year into the city coffers which we need, trust me. But evident it seems, it will be privately funded. I don't know by who and don't know what. Do you have any worries about the finances of it or do you think it's gone so far? Well, a couple of things there. One is I think the city had some political activity going on which was resistant, wasn't it? I think those resistors have done the city a disservice. Because what they've done is made it too hard and difficult so clearly haven't gone elsewhere. When we talked about this on business matters we really laid it on quite thick and we did a great interview up in the Radio City Tower with Joe that he'd done a really good job extracting the deal out of evidence that he'd extracted it because what they had bedded into it was I think some social commitment by the football club that it wasn't going to be the cheapest way for the club to borrow the money but it was probably a better way. And then the politics kicked in and before you know it it's too hard and difficult. So they're going elsewhere, right? It's just frustrating for this. If you forget about football, just from a city point of view we've lost a good bit of revenue each year. For every Darren you've just seen, there's a red going, council tax stadium way out of date. And they had the vision that the city, the council were paying for it. Not it was a loan, they were paying for it and you're like, but anyway, yeah. Insight is a wonderful thing. I would find it almost incredulous if we submitted a planning application. Got it approved and then went, oops, we haven't got the money. So clearly the money is in place. Time will tell whether it's a good deal or not. What we do know that on looking at markets and stuff that it will probably create a debt repayment need of whatever it is, 20 odd million pounds a year. And then that's perhaps not for now because it's a good news story. I'll bring ticket pricing, the capacity and all those things back into play. But I've got no concerns they're going to get it built now, none at all. Right now. Reserved the right to change my mind. We don't know the ins and outs of it so we're just trying to guess at the moment. But we wouldn't be submitting it surely if we didn't have the wherewithal to build it. The club spent in the region a 25 million pound on the site and preparing it in architecture. That's less than Towson cost. It is. Sorry. I was going to say something, I'm not going to. But that's still a big commitment. 25 million pound is a commitment to something. And where it is and everything else, I don't think they'd have any issue attracting investors to be honest with you. I mean, there's ways to get the money in there. There's a big investor with a yacht who will probably just pay it off in one go. When you look at that, it's a bit like your enchilote thing. You think, really? Us? I mean, if that was the other shower building it, you'd be jealous as hell. Oh, without a shadow. Because it's beautiful. And they will be. They will be really. But I think the ones, they will be that jealousy but they're also ones who can see past that. Deaslights next door certainly. When you've passed it, you go, well, you know what we've, we're happy with what we've got. They're well champions, some European champions, so they can be happy with that. And they've got a big stadium, they're building another big stand to be on the goal. So, you know, we may as well back this because it benefits the city. So it just means you will get more in the any road on it when it comes to it. It does, yeah. It might get 3,100 instead of 2,900, but we'll see. There'll be 8,000 next year. The will in the cup. You're absolutely right. There you go. Big thanks to John for joining me on this. Let us know what you think in the comment section below. Did you think this day would come? Were you skeptical? Now it's in. Are you confident that we will be playing Premier League football in 2023 a Bramley Mordoch? I am. We'll be kicking off August with all kinds of things. I just want everything by then. But now in all seriousness, are you happy, delighted that it's gone in before Christmas and are you confident and you're looking forward to going there? If not, what reservations have you got? Big thanks to John. Can't wait. No, I can't wait either. Thumbs up the video. Subscribe if you haven't joined us on Patreon if you want more videos. Thanks for watching. Have a good Christmas feeling there. Have a good one.