To the Admins.
Firstly, congratulations on doing something about the state of repair of the old site by setting up a fresh one with active Admins.
The old site did a lot of things right, but grew organically and some decisions could have perhaps have been improved on if the Admins had the benefit of the hindsight that you now have.
Where the old site ended is perhaps not a bad place to start, but this is an opportunity to improve and refine.
The principle driver of the non-core subforums of the old site was to divert noise away from the core speeding forum. It was a "speeding and other criminal motoring offences" only forum, but people inisisted on asking for advice on other motoring legal matters (similarly to what you may have seen on a certain council parking tickets only facebook group).
My first suggestion would be to remove the apparent invitation to "have an argument" in the Flame Pit. As above the rationale behind the heading was that the Admins just wanted "noise" posted elsewhere than the speeding forum, but having seen the old site's most prolific sad troll use that phrase to justify his persistent trolling re-enforced my original objections.
My second is that if you want to link from a simpler/more memorable URL, ftla.uk is available.
My third and more general suggestion is that this is your sandbox. Take inspiration from what worked on the old site, but take the opportunity to apply the lessons that have been learned.
God speed (and bring back Boris!)
P.S. Spellcheck appears to default to Merkin.