Everton held a successful test evacuation of their new stadium on Sunday, as it emerged that only two per cent of the £800million cost of building it came through public money.
The evacuation, 65 minutes into a match between Everton’s and Bolton Wanderers’ under-21s, was part of the club’s attempt to secure a safety certificate for the 52,888-capacity waterfront stadium, where they will play from next season.
At a time when Manchester United owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe wants hundreds of millions of pounds of public money to enable the construction of the new Old Trafford, Everton’s stadium at Bramley Moore Dock has taken only £15million from the public purse.
Even that has been ringfenced for local heritage work to restore a Grade II listed Victorian hydraulic tower and engine room building, within the stadium site, which helped power the dock in its heyday. The cost of the tower’s preservation is four times the size of the local council grant which Everton were given to restore it. The club will make the tower part of the new stadium experience but are still deciding how.
Fans attending the test event said it was right that Everton should not have been given public money to build their stadium. ‘We’re a Premier League club. How would it look in a city short of public cash and public services if we’d been given money?’ said one fan, 40-year-old Jan Stevens, as she joined the evacuation. ‘It should be the same for Manchester United. They should not have public money.’
Many of the 25,000 fans at the test event were experiencing the stadium for the first time. It was clear that the steep sided stands – part of American architect Dan Meis’ work to maintain the intensity of Goodison – will create an intense atmosphere when Everton begin playing.
It has been revealed how much public money Everton used to build their new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock
The Toffees successfully held a test evacuation event at the ground on Sunday afternoon
David Moyes’ side will move to the ground, which will hold more than 53,000 fans, next season
There was evidence of fan bottlenecks at the Merseyrail Sandhills station, which serves the stadium and is a brisk 10-minute walk away from it. There was overcrowding at the stadium around two hours before kick-off, with trains running every 15 minutes and so full that they couldn’t stop at some stations. Services seem likely to run more frequently on proper matchdays though there is clearly work still be done.
There was less crowding after the match, with queues moving and waiting times shorter. Everton won the game through a Kingsford Boayke header.
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