£70m arena plan scrapped in favour of housing

Council leader Jane Ashworth has said the arena plans were a "pipe dream"

Plans for a 3,600 capacity arena have been scrapped in favour of new housing.

The venue and car park had an estimated cost of about £70m with taxpayers footing the bill, Labour leader Jane Ashworth said.

The scheme had been earmarked for Hanley in Stoke-on-Trent as part of proposals for an Etruscan Square development.

Ms Ashworth said the plans, put forward by the previous Conservative administration, were a pipe dream and not financially viable.

In a bid to make savings, focus has shifted away from the arena in the Etruscan Square scheme which would have cost about £50m for the building and £19m for the car park.

The plans make way for a mobility hub car park and housing and will get £20m from the government's Levelling Up Fund.

The site was previously occupied by the former bus station and East West Precinct.

The initial Etruscan Square scheme proposed an arena, homes and a hotel

"It was very clear that not a single operator of arenas across the UK was prepared to put in any money at all towards building the arena.," Ms Ashworth said.

She added there had not been money set aside for it, and it would have been funded through taxpayers money.

"It was fantasy, it was a pipe dream and now we are going to do something better with it."

• Listen to the full interview with councillor Jane Ashworth

The initial project was championed Conservative group leader Daniel Jellyman.

"Labour announcing that it is now off the books completely is scrapping the future regeneration of the city centre looking 10, 15 years in the future and that's bad news for Stoke."

He told the BBC that he knew of operators who were interested in running the arena.

The local authority has been given a 15 point action plan to help it tackle its budget after it announced it was on the brink of effective bankruptcy.

Last month it revealed an £8.5m black hole, which is expected to grow to £25m in the following financial year.

For now, the local authority has said its primary first task is to build "quality housing" and hopes to share the plans after Christmas.