part of the sports village would have been home to community football pitches, tennis courts, residences, a hotel and large retail space. The southern and eastern boundaries are determined via roads and the small western boundary, via a railway line. Phase 3 was the smallest phase in terms of area and would have been used for the construction of residential properties and park land. The site is occupied by warehouses and workshops. It is separated through the centre via a road creating two thin strips of land which are bounded to the east by a canal. The entire site is contaminated as a result of heavy industry in the past and many of the buildings are derelict. It is believed the cost of decontaminating the land would be at £1 million an acre. Design The new stadium would have been a multi-purpose 55,000-seater stadium which can host cricket, football, rugby and concerts. It was proposed to include moving tiers of seating. It was planned for a supercasino to be built on site, however, after the council backed a separate bid at the National Exhibition Centre in Solihull for an English National Stadium in the West Midlands which consisted of an 85,000 seater stadium to replace the former Wembley Stadium. Amongst other sites campaigning for the National Stadium were Coventry. However, London remained the preferred location for the Wembley replacement. The bid for the sports village was pulled out by the council and it appeared dead. The initial designs showed a stadium with an elliptical footprint and a sloping roof. This stadium was proposed to be built on green belt land known as the Meriden Gap, and not on the later chosen Wheels' Adventure Park. When the plans developed into more serious proposals, images of the new proposed stadium showed a stadium with a rectangular footprint and a large external framework. It was the only part of the sports village to have had a detailed design as the other buildings had not had full consideration. The sports village would have included numerous facilities for sports as well as Birmingham's first Olympic size swimming pool, however there were plans for an Olympic size swimming pool to be built at a site in Aston University near the Eastside. As well as this, of the development could have formed a new community sports campus, on top of a 200-bed hotel, an outdoor theatre, approximately