Grove still faces challenges

Arsenal are facing a series of legal challenges that could yet destabilise the building of a new 60,000-seat stadium.

The club yesterday announced that financial backing had finally been secured for the £357 million scheme to move out of Highbury to a new ground only a few hundred yards away at Ashburton Grove.

Due to open in 2006, this would allow Arsenal to compete financially with Manchester United.

But the Evening Standard has learned that opponents of the stadium are lining up three different challenges to their plans.

The first relates to compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) that Islington council is seeking on behalf of the club that would have the effect of driving out 38 businesses from land around the new stadium.

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is expected to decide next month whether to confirm the CPOs. But a High Court challenge is already being prepared in the event that he gives the go-ahead.

Raymond Pinn, whose firm, Alliance Spring Company, has been under threat since Arsenal's plans emerged in 1999, said: 'It's not all over yet. I can't afford to let it go.'

He said he had been offered £545,000 to move away - but said it would cost more than £900,000 to find a similar factory in Islington, where his firm has been based since 1911.

Mr Pinn said Arsenal had offered to allow him to remain on site until December 2006 if he agreed to sell up, but threatened to evict him within days if he refused and the CPOs were granted.

The second challenge is by two Islington residents, Ted Bedford and Elizabeth Clare, to the European Court of Human Rights.

They say the Court of Appeal was wrong to deny them the right to appeal its 2002 decision rejecting their claim that the new stadium breached their human rights because of its impact on the environment. If they win their case in Europe this could force a rethink by the Court of Appeal and may result in the entire planning application being reconsidered.

The third challenge could come from the European Commission if the CPOs are granted and Arsenal later benefits financially when the land is sold on to developers. Campaigners say this could be regarded as a form of illegal state aid in breach of European law.

Under the scheme, 2,200 new homes will be built and 1,800 new jobs would also be created.

But Alison Carmichael, of the Islington Stadium Communities Alliance, said: 'The Government's independent planning inspector said he agreed totally with us that the plans were not in the public interest.'