'The stadium is a no brainer. Everybody wins, particularly the long-suffering East Marsh community'

It was more than 25 years ago I first wrote a story for this newspaper revealing proposals for a new Grimsby Town stadium.

A joint initiative by the former Grimsby Borough Council and the football club would see them working together to find a suitable site.

Plans, baseball hats (announcing sponsorship by Conoco) and more plans followed in the intervening period. But we still await a desperately-needed new home for the Mariners.

No wonder then, that this week’s announcement by North East Lincolnshire Council and the football club has been met by a degree of cynicism.

I feel fans’ frustration. It will take the first sod to be turned over to convince many.

However, I am more hopeful than I have been at any time since 1993 a new community stadium will emerge off Freeman Street.

My optimism comes from:

• The realisation Blundell Park is not fit-for-purpose. In particular, the Main Stand and its facilities for the disabled, women and, indeed, all supporters, is an embarrassment.
• The sensible decision by the football club “to pause” the Peaks Parkway stadium plan.
• The demolition of Freeman Street flats, nearby Comber Place and the soon-to-go Freeman House and other units creating a huge brownfield site.
• The East Marsh being in desperate need of serious social and economic regeneration not new pavements and lampposts.

• The Freemen of Grimsby’s forward-thinking approach, buying the three-and-a-half-acre plot that runs along Freeman Street from the market to Kent Street and their willingness to lead the regeneration agenda.
• The much-heralded Town Deal, the new partnership between the Government and North East Lincolnshire Council, expected to unlock millions of pounds of funding.
• Cross-party political support.
• Strengthening relationships between the major players, including Lincolnshire Housing Partnership, the owners of the brownfield site.

I am reassured, behind the scenes, plenty is going on to make this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity happen.

Whoever takes the lead, the East Marsh community must be engaged in the process from the off.

We need residents to get behind a project that is much bigger than a new football stadium.

My thoughts, expressed over a number of years, focus on a regeneration scheme, the like of which has not been seen in this part of Lincolnshire. The stadium is a small component.

Imagine a place where hundreds of people travel to daily. A place where they work, where they learn, where they live.

The stands of the stadium could include offices, business incubation units, a school, community centre, sports facilities and homes.

This is not somewhere people only turn up to at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon.

As a result, small enterprises, such as coffee shops and sandwich bars, spring up in the surrounding area to meet the needs of this influx of people. Businesses move in to be sited near the docks and its burgeoning renewables industry.

The East Marsh, for years written off, becomes the place to be and be seen.

Wonderful gems such as the Central Hall, the Caxton Theatre and Freeman Street Market – all suffering because of the area’s decline - are given a new lease of life.

It’s a no brainer. Everybody wins, particularly the long-suffering East Marsh community.

A project such as this is too big an opportunity to miss and, indeed, to do so would be unforgivable. Focus on the finishing line, not the hurdles.

I really do believe in 25 years – if I’m lucky and asked again – I will be writing about a proud East Marsh community which used a community stadium as a catalyst to transformation.