Ken Bates ambitious plans to revamp the Elland Road East Side took a step closer to reality today.

According to the official Leeds United website, subject to submission of a legal-document, the city council have granted Bates permission to revamp the East Stand at Elland Road.

Papa Smurf was reportedly delighted with the news and thanked the council for their support. He talked of wishing to increase the non-matchday income stream of the club and the plans include a 350 room hotel, a shopping arcade, improvements to the existing banqueting and conference facilities and a night-club!

Critics will surely argue this all smacks a bit of, dare I say, Chelsea Village? LS11 is hardly the swinging west-end either.

Bates often seems to be out of touch with how things are "ooop north" (like ticket-prices for example!), I can't fault him for wanting to exploit revenue from a venue that effectively lies dormant for thirteen days out of fourteen and then three months during the summer.

No disrespect to the location where ER sits, but when they did the Britannia Inn up a few years ago I thought it looked way too posh for the neighbourhood! Yes until the credit crunch bit, Leeds as a city was doing very nicely yes sireee but ER is somewhat remote from the mass regeneration and development that has taken place in the city-centre in the last 15 years or so.

I might be wrong and may be made to eat my words...maybe there is room in LS11 for somewhere where you can shop, dine, boogie and sleep in luxury, however I suspect we would need at least Premiership football on offer at the very least before this became a reality.

Photo: Action Images

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