City should get national football museum, says election hopeful

Mike Newton, who plans to stand as Wolverhampton West's Conservative candidate at the next General Election, said he would be pushing for the city to host a regional branch of the National Football Museum in Manchester.

Stoke City fan Mr Newton said the city needed an 'iconic' development to halt the decline it had suffered in recent years.

He said a Midland offshoot of London's Tate Gallery was another idea that should be considered.

Mr Newton described the city centre as 'a mess', saying it had declined considerably since he worked there in the 1990s, and people were now afraid to visit after dark.

He said he had held talks with West Midlands elected mayor Andy Street about rejuvenating the city.

"The thing that really stands out is the decline in the city centre, that's a mess," he said.

"We can't help but feel that certain things need to be done to help turn that decline around.

"We need to do something iconic in Wolverhampton.

"This is a football-mad region, maybe we need something like a Midlands branch of the National Football Museum, the region's big enough to support it and it should be in Wolverhampton.

"If elected, I would push very, very hard for that, or maybe we have a branch of the Tate, something like that."

Mr Newton backed council plans to have more people living in the city, but said the ring road was a forbidding obstacle for people entering the city on foot. He said large bridges with pedestrian concourses could be part of the solution, if funding could be found.

"We have to, I think, change the city centre, in terms of getting more people to live here, but it doesn't help having that ring road," he said.

"The ring road in Wolverhampton was considered iconic when it was first built, but it's become a bit of a noose around the city centre's neck, a clear delineation between the city centre and the rest of Wolverhampton.

"I think at some stage we might need to think about putting some cover over it so people can come on foot from the residential areas in to the city. We need to find the funding, and things like that aren't cheap, but I would certainly support better access for surrounding residential areas on foot into the city centre."

Mr Newton said the fear of crime was also putting visitors off.

"We need better city-centre policing," he said.

"People feel frightened to come here at night. I think we need to have far more robust policing in the city centre, almost zero tolerance.

"It's got to be somewhere people can come at reasonable hours of the day or not and not be looking over their shoulders."

The National Football Museum opened at Preston North End's Deepdale stadium in 2001, but closed after nine years. It then moved to central Manchester in 2010.