Maine Road’s 1994 Redevelopment Plan

Here’s a 1994 plan of what might have been in terms of Maine Road’s development. This image is of how the entire stadium was supposed to look. To explain the colour image looks towards the stadium from above the Kippax car park. The North Stand is on the right and the Platt Lane on the left. The black and white image is from the other side of the ground, looking towards the Kippax from the Main Stand.

You can see from the black and white image that the plan was to replicate the general look of the new Kippax (being planned at this stage – this was January 1994 and the old Kippax was still standing) around the ground. The North Stand was to have a second tier added and hospitality boxes between the levels, like the new Kippax. The Platt Lane was to have a second tier added above the two lines of existing hospitality boxes.

The Main Stand would have part of the seating chopped away and a new second tier added.

To facilitate all of this some houses were to be bought and demolished on the streets immediately behind the North Stand and the Kippax/Platt Lane corner.

The new Kippax was the first phase of the development but Manchester’s bids for the Olympics changed thinking. Couple that with relegation in 1996 and the wholesale redevelopment of Maine Road was postponed after the Kippax opened and then dropped completely.

As mentioned previously, Francis Lee’s plans would have seen the new Kippax followed by a phased development of each of the other three stands. These images might give an indication of how it would have progressed.

The following 1971 aerial image shows the proximity of the housing on Thornton Road (bottom left, near number 6) and behind the North Stand (number 10). They were planned to be demolished in Lee’s 1994 plan.

If you’d like to read more on the history of Maine Road, take a look at Farewell To Maine Road, which can be downloaded from this page:

Farewell To Maine Road – Part One

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