The Guardian is reporting that the Scum are struggling to get the land they need for that big stadium project of theirs. They want to buy the rail terminal for £40-50m, the owners want £400m.
That site will be partly used for the new ground and partly for the wider redevelopment of the area. It's not like they can proceed with any aspect of the project unless they purchase it.
Quite aside from the negotiation / cost perspective on buying the land, any delay in the process will add loads of cost to the other aspects of the build (principally inflation, and exposure to movements in steel prices). Meanwhile, Old Toilet will keep getting more and more dilapidated.
We spent years buying up houses near the ground to build the Main Stand - even if you can persuade the local authority to issue a compulsory purchase order, it's not a quick, or cheap, process.
Sad.