Warwickshire to ground-share with Birmingham City?

A report in the Birmingham Post claims that Warwickshire are in talks with the city council regarding the feasibility of them building a new stadium in conjunction with Birmingham City FC.

Warwickshire have made no secret of their frustration with restrictions on development at Edgbaston, particular the repeated refusal of applications to install permanent floodlights on the ground. All previous attempts have been thwarted by local residents.

A move away from Edgbaston would free them of such restrictions, and by entering into a ground-share arrangement they would be able to build a far better stadium that were they to try and finance it on their own.

The Birmingham Post article says that the talks, which are at an advanced stage, involve selling St Andrews (Birmingham City's home) and Edgbaston and building a new, 60,000 seater stadium in central Birmingham (the Eastside district), which would benefit from a roof and (moveable) athletics track. The idea is to host the Commonwealth games as well as national and international cricket all year round.

Dennis Amiss, Warwickshire's chief executive, admitted that the county had contributed to the feasibility study, but downplayed the likelihood of the plans coming to fruition. "We thought that it was only right to ensure that we looked at the possibility in a responsible manner. But the city council are talking about a multi-sport arena with a capacity of around 60,000 and which could cost £150 million.

"I don't think it would be sensible to play county cricket in a stadium of that size. If it is going to be a multi-sport venue, with football as the main sport, it would be difficult to marry that up with county cricket. I think that, realistically, the only cricket that could be played at the stadium is international cricket. We would not own the stadium and we would have to rent the stadium to stage international matches there."