Yesterday the Herald revealed the masterplan for Home Park. The Life Centre is already progressing, but the application for further development includes the completion of Home Park to its 40,000+ capacity, a new arena/ice rink to replace the Pavilions on the football field, a cinema on the council's Parks Services depot, various blocks of student accommodation, a 3 star hotel and retail units on the car park.
In my opinion the majority of that is not required. Certainly there should be no need for further student accommodation, and certainly not within the area of Central Park. The retail centre is unnecessary too as there are several supermarkets nearby and the place is unsuitable for a retail park with such generic names as PC World and DFS. Besides, there's be no car parking left. And the Vue Cinema in Coxside has already closed the Odeon and threatened Reel in the city centre.
So of the development, I only agree with the finishing of Home Park (though not to the capacity proposed), the hotel - likely to be a Travelodge type establishment - and the arena/ice rink. This too could easily be accommodated within the new South Stand development. Although I do disagree that the development itself (ie the buildings, not the usage) would cause undue harm to Central Park as it is all proposed to be contained within areas that are already developed, except for the football field.
All in all it's a pipe dream for the World Cup bid. It may happen, but it's probably gone in slightly the wrong direction on the way.
There's a great website at http://build2.jensenmeyer.com/ with pdf plans to download and peruse for more in depth detail.
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