Stadium kicks off facelift hopes

The new Wembley will seat 90,000

Plans to transform Wembley into a thriving city quarter will be unveiled on Tuesday.

Brent Council is revealing its proposals to regenerate the north west London community which will surround the new 90,000 seat national stadium.

It says the area will be transformed with the creation of 10,000 new jobs, affordable homes, hotels, restaurants, offices, shops and better transport links.

It is hoped a new purpose-built Wembley Arena and the London Convention Centre will attract more international visitors and better transport links will bring in more people from across the UK.

'Fantastic place'

Brent Council leader Ann John said: "Over the next few years we intend to firmly re-establish Wembley's place on the map.

"It will be a fantastic place to live and work that will draw visitors from all corners of the world."

But Stephen Games, who was a director of the Wembley Regeneration Consortium which urged an alternative use of the old stadium site, said: "There is a fundamental conflict between the stadium and everything else.

"When you have 90,000 people coming to a stadium that locks up the area.

"There either has to be a stadium or there has to be a redevelopment with the stadium on another site somewhere completely different.

"My preferred option would be for the stadium to go somewhere completely different and for Wembley to have the new town centre which it desperately needs."