 Welcome to Toffy TV. It is a historical day for Everton. A few days after changing the course of history at Amfield, I am joined by John Blaine, chairman of the Everton Shareholders Association and a third of the very popular podcast Everton Business Matters. John, thank you for joining me. It's not been a bad few days for Everton, has it? We've had better. Well, yeah, we have. No, no, it's been a good few days, really. I mean, obviously the Derby result was one we've needed for many a long year. And actually, it's many a long year that we've waited for this decision that's come out today. A unanimous decision, of course, which is always good. And yeah, good times. Very good times. And of course, talking very shortly after Everton has just been granted granted plan and permission by Liverpool City Council. It isn't the end of the matter because the size and scale of the project means that it will have to be reviewed by national government. But John, it's certainly the first hurdle has been cleared by Everton today in terms of getting this one passed by our local council first. Yeah, I mean, you say the first hurdle in many respects, it's the highest hurdle because if they say no, it never goes near Jenrick and in this, you know, the Secretary of State. One assumes that that will be a process exercise because it needs to be referred because the scale of the project and obviously the objections of historic England and the Victorian society. But I mean, I think it would fundamentally be astonishing if he said anything other than nothing to see here move along. And therefore the club, as they've cautiously said, would like to be on site proper late spring early summer. And then it's just a matter of time until they build the thing on that underlying assumption for the warriors out there that the money is in place or will be in place. Yeah, I think obviously, you know, we were told last week that things were looking good going into this meeting. But, you know, have them watch the meeting live and listen to a lot of viewpoints put forward. I mean, I thought it was handled really well. And I think my favourite person on the whole thing was Joe Hansen, who is a Liverpool fan, actually. But basically, because as well as saying, you know, his support behind the... It's easy to throw your weight behind something that's going to regenerate. If you care about the city, it's going to bring jobs into the city and extra money and all that. Of course, it's easy to just sit there and go, oh, yeah, I back it because we'll bring money and it'll regenerate the north of Liverpool. What I thought was brilliant was his actual reasoning as to why people like Historic England and UNESCO, there's more UNESCO, but why they had any kind of negative connotations towards it anyway. Because he went on to list the reasons. It was a working doc, but it hasn't been a working doc for a number of years. And he went on and he said, my family's full of doc workers and everything going back 1500 years, his ancestors and everything. Right up to the reason why the doc wall was built, which has been forgotten, I think, in all of this, John, in terms of the protestation by some people. Protect the wall. The wall was built to basically keep people out of the doc area. That's Joe described it by slaves. Yeah, exactly as well. Is this something we're proud of? And I can't remember which guy it was, but it was the guy who sounds like he's from outside the area. And he was very, very good as well. He said he wasn't particularly interested in football, but I think he came up with a cracking line, which would be the damage to the heritage would be leaving it alone and letting it fall apart, basically. And that evidence had gone so very far. It's not true about, you know, I think it was very impressed and all those words about protecting the heritage and actually bringing it back to life as well. And so it's like many things, isn't it? We've got the outcome today that we expected. You're talking about, you know, or we're talking about when will it be finalised sometime in the next month or two. You know, it would have been quicker if it wasn't for Covid, but it would have only been three weeks at 21 days. But let's give some leeway to central government because they're quite busy at the time at the moment. But I can't imagine it's going to be anything other than a ratification of the recommendation fundamentally of the Liverpool City Council who granted it, who acted on the recommendation of their case officer who has lived and breathed this presumably for a good while and then for it to be unanimous. And I presume that means that the leader of the Green Party who did his thing about bats and all that good stuff, you know, if it's unanimous, he's voted for it as well. So it's quite cool. You've sort of got the Green Party voting it from an environmental point of view, Liverpool have voted for it because it's good for the city, which actually reflects what happened with the public consultations, that it was the citizens of Liverpool in the wider city region who overwhelmingly provided the body of evidence that this is in the public interest. And respect to those actually who were not blues for actually seeing it that way because the natural rivalry within the city is always seen as being almost black and white rather than the true colours. But actually what we've proven as a city year upon year and event upon event is that when it really matters and when the common denominator is what's good for our people and our city, then the rent and the blues you can't really see the difference to be honest in opinion. And it's really nice to see that this is another example of that. Especially a few days after we just beat them in the dark. Well absolutely, but all the evidence was in place by then. I've caught listening. Let's be honest, this probably means it's almost impossible now for them ever to build a new stadium in this city. Not that they've ever shown any inclination to do it in the past, but it's our hat trick hopefully and the last one was the best one, isn't it? So that would be cool. Definitely, I mean you just made just before we move on to the next step, you just made a really good point about the councillor you spoke about heritage. Now you made a really good point about the heritage thing because you know saying that leaving it preserved and there is a dark preserved heritage, no one's going to see it whereas whatever they're doing people are actually going to visibly see the heritage of that part of the city now. People going in evidently will have maintained that they're keeping tram lines in the designs, the way they've designed it, fitting with everything else, developing the clock face, the six face tower and everything. So people are actually going to get the opportunity to see these things which we're talking about with the historical importance to the city by preserving it and building on it and regenerating it. So that's how people see heritage. I mean there was great points made by the same fella about buildings being preserved for heritage that are actually mothballing and falling down now, you know, because people haven't... That's what a big player guy said that didn't he? Exactly, so to me it makes so much sense to be developed these things so that we all get to enjoy them all over again. That's the key, because again just to finish on Joe really, that's the points you made, you know, heritage shouldn't get in the way of progress and he referenced the guy who designed and built the damn things and what have you said. Did he think that you were not going to move this thing on for commercial and the benefit of the city because somebody... I suppose he, a bit with me, either resisted or tried to resist saying some shower of historic England people who are fundamentally out of London or something. And I don't know whether they are or they're not, but clearly his strong message was it's people who don't live in the city who were objecting to what they think is a heritage site that should be preserved for who, the people in the city. And yet the people in the city say, well yeah we quite like the heritage, we're proud of our city, but time waits for no man and overwhelmingly the citizens have said that as the very technical part of the judgement is that the citizens have said that the benefits of the city outweigh the heritage concerns. And I can't imagine Robert Jenric concluding anything different. Why would he? I was just going to move on to that because obviously it's the final point to make. It's now, it's really good, it's been passed here, it will go down to central government now for them to look at. It will go down with a strong recommendation from LCC, which is one of the things they've wrapped up with, that have gone above and beyond almost in what they've done to embrace the heritage, the history of it as well as their own extensive research, the stuff they've done canvassing people within the city. Everybody was given the opportunity to have their say on public, two or three public consultations I think it ended up being. So it's going to go with a strong recommendation that we've done all the groundwork here, us as a city not just having football club. And the overall recommendation is it's for the good of the city and therefore you're right to be very, it seems to be difficult for central government not to do anything other than just say yeah go on with it, go and create 15,000 jobs at a time when it's needed. And off you go, off you pop so to speak. Yeah, we talked about this briefly on business matters or might be offline to be honest, but there's an opportunity for a central government minister or whatever to jump on the bandwagon and be the person who, well I decided, aren't I a good boy sort of thing. And I think the best thing for central government to do would be to actually sit on it for whatever is perceived to be an appropriate amount of time and then say, you know what, we're actually happy for the full city council to make this decision. Therefore, nothing to see move along and then perhaps do something to reaffirm the alleged commitments of the government to the Northwest and our city in particular. Yeah, definitely. I mean he's just passed the coal mine in Cymru and so I know that's getting objections but they passed it so therefore the stadium creating 15,000 jobs. And that local council changed the mine now? Well like they possibly have because of the backlash from it, but it's that's what I'm saying is central government just went yeah you can have the coal mine off you pop. It's quite amusing isn't it? Sorry because it is a distraction but you can well imagine that council saying well we'll pass it and make the government be the bad guys by doing it. The bad guys by saying no and the government just send this straight back again. Yeah, so it is interesting. I mean the presentations were a bit dry this morning but that's the nature of the process. But again because I guess we're all doing the same thing chatting on WhatsApps and so on while it's going on. You know my observation is the only difference between when it actually comes down to absolutes about a good I mean in the wider sense a good proposal and a bad one is good ones win and bad ones don't. Yeah, and therefore if you've won it was good and it doesn't matter how good it was if you lost it clearly wasn't good enough. So so on that basis we've achieved the objective today you know more power to the elbow of those people who pitched up you know Ian from CBRE and obviously Denise leading that team with people like Colin and Mo. I thought spoke really well just to get it over the line which is cool. Yeah, definitely. So what in your I know I know it's not within your you know you don't know how long it's really going to be but how long would you expect something like this before we do some kind of next decision on whether or not. Yeah the statutory term I think is 21 days or something for the Secretary of State I guess and it won't be him doing it it'll be his civil servants and so on. But I think Paul said it on the last business matters because he's the sort of character goes off and reads construction journals and God knows what else would say what the average has been recently. So I think we can think maybe six to eight weeks or something like that I don't know. Maybe maybe by April we'll. So typical did the Everton Warriors who DM me and they'll know they all want to say that and they can start worrying again if it takes longer than that I suppose but between now and then they should just enjoy it and take with good grace all the congratulations that we will inevitably get from bands from across the city and across the water because I think Liverpool fans will be absolutely delighted that we're building our third new stage. Well they can have their own ground in their own place to themselves now can't they and we'll get on with that but yeah so it's a good day it's like I say a historic day in some respects because obviously we've like you said we've cleared the biggest hurdle that there was and now obviously we've got another one with central government but the fact that it's gone down to central government and our own council have passed it after extensive work by Everton means that it's looking good. Yeah and it does justify because it has been clearly as I said you get the outcome you want. I think Sasha Ryzansev said two or three years ago when I was with him at the club on a match day whichever season was the first opening game I think might have been Southampton something like that at home and he said some of these things we've all had angst about will be forgotten once it's built. You know what I'm saying isn't it? And we're still doing it so far touch wood and all that a lot faster than our sorry Tottenham. Tottenham. And let's be clear that just to finish off Johnnet we need it though as much as we all love the place that's behind me then we absolutely need to move on don't we in terms of if we want to be trying to catch teams that are above us and stuff and try to have we all know how we feel after Saturday which was a winning a big game we want to be winning them regularly. The trophies and to do that we need simply need a new stadium with bigger revenue streams and everything else with it don't we to do that. So yeah somebody will work out how many games are going to be at Buddhism between now and then but we need to say this is the beginning of the end for the good isn't it. And then it starts a new life then of course is the community asset that it will become. And sadly sorry sadly it's not sad once the decision was made I had to get on with my job. Yeah but of course Denise and the rest of the team had to carry on to the councillors about the heritage and the legacy side a bit as well which of course has been approved today at the same time. Because all three applications were treated on one though weren't they so that's good. Excellent excellent. Right John you are obviously keeping a sign of Geraldo here. Seems to be yeah. So I'm going to let you go but thanks very much for taking time on and thank you look after yourself see you soon. Take care. Thanks for watching make sure you give the video a thumbs up. Sorry. Turn it off while I just do that wrap up. Thanks for watching make sure you give the video a thumbs up, subscribe if you haven't. Don't forget to check out John on Everton Business Matters podcast as well and we'll see you later.