ONE of the key benificiaries of the deal will be Lancashire County Cricket Club.

The package will mean the club can bring the stadium up to the level required for international test cricket to be played there, allowing teams such as Australia, Pakistan and India to go head-to-head in Manchester.

It will be the only test ground in the north west able to offer the standard demanded by the ECB.

Chief executive Jim Cumbes said: “Unfortunateley there was no other way of doing it.

“We explored every avenue available to us including moving to Wigan and Manchester, but it was local people who told us they wanted us to stay.

“We need to get on with the ground improvements straight away if we want to continue to have international test cricket played here.

“What we have done is to try create a something that will help the community.

“We will be co-sponsoring a new school academy and have a new media building which will be used as an educational resource. We also plan to double the size of our cricket school for the benefit of the local community.

“There’s a retail impact study that’s being done which will go in with the application showing how local retailers will be affected. The traffic impact assessment as far as I’m aware came out reasonably well.

“I think there are always concerns when it comes to big supermarkets being built.

“I live in Altrincham and we had the same thing there a while back.

“I was actually walking down near to where the Tesco will be only the other day and I thought to myself ‘this will really lift the area’.

“I have also spoken to residents who’ve said they think it’s great as at the moment they have to go to Asda in Hulme to do their shopping.”