Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Alison McGovern, Shadow Minister for Employment and MP for Wirral South, visited Goodison Park on Monday to find out more about Everton’s new stadium development and the wide-reaching work of the Club’s official charity, Everton in the Community.
Ms Reeves, MP for Leeds West, and Ms McGovern met with Everton representatives including Director of Communications, Revenue and International Growth Richard Kenyon and Everton in the Community Chief Executive Officer Sue Gregory.
The economic benefits of the new 52,888-capacity stadium currently being constructed for Everton at Bramley-Moore Dock and the boost the project will provide to local employment, industry and tourism were outlined to the Club's guests. They also learned about Everton in the Community's more than 40 programmes covering a range of social issues including health, employability, anti-social behaviour, crime, education, dementia, poverty, youth engagement, youth justice and disability.
Everton’s new stadium, due for completion in the 2024/25 season, is recognised as the largest single-site private sector development in the country, contributing an estimated £1.3bn to the UK economy and creating tens of thousands of jobs.
Once complete, the scheme will have acted as a catalyst for more than £650m worth of accelerated regeneration directly benefiting the nearby Ten Streets development and will attract an estimated 1.4m visitors to the city of Liverpool annually.
Through its charity, Everton is also building The People's Place - a £1million dedicated mental health facility due to open later this year.
Rachel Reeves MP, Shadow Chancellor, said: "I was hugely impressed by the work being delivered by Everton in the Community to people across the Liverpool City Region, and in particular the work they’ve been doing to support people during and after the pandemic.
“It was also fantastic to learn how Everton’s new stadium is providing a boost to the economy and local industries, creating jobs and driving the regeneration of an area of Liverpool that has the potential to thrive on the back of this new development."
Sue Gregory, Chief Executive Officer of Everton in the Community, said: "It was our pleasure to host both the Shadow Chancellor and Shadow Minister for Employment today and to outline to them the life-changing and life-saving work Everton in the Community does in L4 and beyond.
"We were also able to demonstrate how community is at the heart of our new stadium plans, as well as our commitment to create a legacy community site on the Goodison Park footprint once our move to Bramley-Moore Dock is complete.
"I would like to thank both Rachel and Alison for their time and for their interest in how we are supporting people and creating opportunities in our community.”
