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The City of Salford Stadium is the future new home of Salford Rugby League Club. Salford City Council formed a joint venture company with Peel Holdings to develop and deliver the £16 million stadium, which will form part of the overall £26m development of the area due to be developed in Barton-upon-Irwell, Eccles.

Initially the stadium will be built for a 12,000 crowd but it will be extended to accommodate up to 20,000 over time. . The stadium will have an area designated for standing supporters. This partial-standing design is similar to the Halliwell Jones Stadium, home of Warrington RLFC. The Reds current ground, The Willows, in the Weaste district of Salford, is a much smaller ground with a capacity of around 11,000, with 2,500 seats.

The development will include built-in offices, player facilities, hospitality boxes, concessions, community resources, two community outdoor sports pitches and will be available for business and public hire.

Development Process
The City of Salford Community Stadium was first announced in December 2000 when the Salford City Reds announced they were close to finalising plans for a 20,000 seated stadium to be built opposite Barton Aerodrome. The original plans were to move out of their current home of over 100 years The Willows and move into the stadium by 2003.

Despite the clubs confidence they would have built and moved into a new stadium by 2003 there was no further news on the development until April 2003 when the club released the first CGI shot of the proposed £35 million 20,000 capacity stadium in the Manchester Evening News.

The April 2003 announcement confirmed that the stadium had gone through four years of planning and was earmarked to be built on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal next to the Barton Bridge on the M60 motorway.

Plans were submitted to the council by club officials with the first phase due to start in December 2004. The scheme planned to regenerate 50 acres of land, was a result of a partnership between the City of Salford council, United Utilities and Red City Developments.

thumb|left|Artists impression in 2003 of the original plan for the City of Salford Stadium.|alt=Artists impression in 2003 of the original plan for the City of Salford Stadium. Leading architects Arup, who were responsible for other sporting stadia projects such as City of Manchester Stadium, Lang Park and Melbourne Cricket Ground were working on the the stadium project which would form part of a privately financed, £60 million scheme that would result in over 2,000 jobs being created. The development planned to include 62 corporate hospitality boxes, conference and banqueting facilities, shopping mall, casino and a 4-star 200 bedroom hotel similar to the hotel at the Reebok Stadium.

A new bus road would be built for buses travelling from Peel Green and Eccles. GMPTE planned further extensions for rail and Metrolink to link the stadium directly to Manchesters major public transport links.

The new plans were due to go before Salford planning committee in October 2003 but the Highways Agency, which has responsibility for the motorway network within the UK imposed an order on the plan preventing the council from making a decision .

The Highways Agency believed that a decision should not be made until plans for a rail freight terminal on land next to the stadium and an office complex at Trafford Quays that were being submitted by another development company (and owners of Trafford Centre) Peel Holdings.

The Highways Agency wanted to have an overview of how traffic flows will be affected by all three proposed developments before any decisions were made.

The Highways Agency action could potentially delay the proposal until 2007 as the decision could have to go to a Public inquiry. Further controversy surrounded the Red City Developments proposal as Peel Holdings could object to the shopping mall element of the stadium which is crucial to finance the proposals put forward from Red City Developments as the shopping mall would be built so close to the Trafford Centre.

Links

 * Reds website
 * City of Salford
 * Salford Stadium gets Government approval
 * new stadium page