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Plans for a new stadium for Everton FC – plus a major housing and retail development – on Walton Hall Park have been abandoned.

The club and Liverpool council have confirmed they will now be looking elsewhere for new home for the Blues.

Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson has also pledged Walton Hall Park will “remain a park and will be designated as such” – ruling out future development there.

The council and club now say they are looking at two other unnamed sites in the city for a new stadium for Everton FC after admitting the proposal for Walton Hall Park “was always ambitious”.

A joint statement from the council and Everton FC said: “Liverpool City Council and Everton Football Club can confirm they have been working together over recent months to investigate alternative plans for a new stadium for Everton Football Club.

“These new plans no longer focus on Walton Hall Park but on two other potential sites brownfield sites within the city boundary.

“The proposed scheme at Walton Hall Park was always an ambitious one. It was a regeneration scheme that relied heavily on retail investment into the site.

“Most of the current investment into retail is focused on city centres and larger district centres and not on out-of-town developments like this would have been.”

Last year Liverpool’s Mayor Joe Anderson said Everton had not shown it could afford the plan for a stadium and development of Walton Hall Park estimated to cost £300m.

That vision had included 1,000 new homes and 30,000 square metres of leisure, retail and restaurant space as well as a new home for the Blues.

However, proposals had come up against determined opposition from campaigners aiming to retain Walton Hall Park who became part of a wider coalition oppsoing development on green spaces across the city, a cause taken up by opposition parties including the Greens and Liberal Democrats.

Mayor Anderson said: “Most people will be aware that I did give a commitment to Everton to support a potential scheme at Walton Hall Park with the aim of regenerating the area and creating new jobs.

“However, through the work that the club and the council have done, we have concluded that effectively building a new village in North Liverpool with lots of retail space is a step too far in this current economic climate.

“On the subject of the park itself, I can now say that the park will remain a park and will be designated as such in our Local Plan which will be out for consultation this summer.”

The council and the club say they are are now working together to explore a stadium solution on a brownfield site in the city.

Robert Elstone, chief executive of Everton Football Club said: “Our work with the council, particularly over the last few months, has been positive and progressive and whilst our work evaluating the alternatives is at an early stage, we are hopeful that the new sites provide us with a much more straightforward, deliverable opportunity to build a new stadium.”