“A major disadvantage of the AFC scheme is that low income households would be concentrated … thereby reinforcing social divides.”Other specific conclusions were that the extra jobs produced will be outnumbered by the increase in people living in the area and so could reduce local people’s employment prospects, and that green space, in a borough which has the least in London, would be cut. Arsenal are paying for a new £60m plant, being built across Holloway Road on Lough Road, a modern, cleaner facility, which will recycle more waste. That will be demolished and become the site of the stadium itself. appropriate to London’s role as a world city”, and added that the stadium’s “positive impact” would be one of the project’s main benefits to the area However, he enunciated a list of downsides.

Ashburton Grove is currently dominated by a huge concrete Lubyanka of a waste station, a monumental, smelly eyesore, which he described, somewhat generously, as “primitive”. He rejected the idea that this is regeneration at all, saying it is “simply a redevelopment scheme” which favours Arsenal’s “private interests”.He acknowledged that the stadium would be “world class … to help fund the construction of the stadium.”As Arsenal’s planning permission relates to the whole scheme, it is also unclear whether the club could plough ahead with the stadium while this other part of the development remains in doubt Edelman was adamant it could. The Inspector was unsure, but overall his report was damning – more of the local Islington Council than the football club, which only wants a new 60,000-seater stadium to enable it to make enough money to compete with Manchester United and the newly roubled Chelsea. The council, when giving planning permission, claimed to have wrested from Arsenal major benefits including a new, improved waste station, affordable housing, new health centres and nurseries, parkland and public transport improvements in this down-at-heel area either side of the Holloway Road.But the Inspector said the council had been “opportunistic” – grabbing the chance of a quid pro quo from Arsenal – rather than producing its own plans after proper consultation with the local community. “The residential and commercial developments we are planning for Queensland Road,” he said, “have not been put into our financial model.”This does, however, contradict the government’s own letter, which says clearly: “Arsenal FC would use money generated from the subsequent sale of land … Keith Edelman, Arsenal’s managing director, told me it will not, and the club is understood to be confident that a consortium of banks, led by the Royal Bank of Scotland, is close to agreeing the £260m loans the club needs to build the stadium.Edelman said the banks are not nervous about the CPOs, because Arsenal do not in fact need these properties for access to the stadium, and the profits from selling them are paying for the wider scheme, not the stadium itself.

The council will then pass the land to Arsenal, who will make huge profits by selling it to developers, with planning permission, for lucrative Islington housing. If, as expected, Prescott confirms his approval for the CPOs, probably in February, the opponents then have six weeks to appeal. The report’s unambiguous disapproval of the CPOs and the scheme in general – which the inspector said brought “disappointingly low” benefits to the area – makes an appeal more likely, and it could take a year to be heard.Whether this pushes further back the already delayed project is unclear, however. Nevertheless, the office of the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, last week overruled his inspector’s judgements, saying Prescott was “minded to approve” the CPOs.

Poyet, tracksuit collar pulled up over his chin, left at a funereal marching pace.Tottenham’s notional ribbons had parted company with this season’s Carling Cup Close up, it was emotional.. Local residents’ groups and businesses battling against Arsenal’s planned new stadium will renew their opposition after a crushing report by the Government’s planning inspector concluded the massive £410m development would be socially divisive, blight Islington’s already poorest people by siting a huge new rubbish processing plant next to their homes, could damage local employment prospects, lose vital green spaces and cause major inconvenience to residents. He seemed to be thinking about something very important – his greenhouse, perhaps, or that shed which needed painting.Franck Queudrue’s decisive penalty saw the Tottenham manager switch straight into hand-shaking mode. He gave away nothing, although the same could not be said for his players as they left the field Taricco seemed close to tears. Hughton, with notebook, was hyperactive; Pleat put a new piece of chewing gum in his mouth and ambled off again. It was not the time.Pleat, meanwhile, was speaking to his fidgety young Portuguese sub, Helder Postiga.