Luton Town changes stadium plans

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The Championship club changed its plans for moving from its current 10,000 seat Kenilworth Road ground to a new home. Bill Tomlins, club chairman, has said the club has now revised its proposal to build a new 15,000 all seater stadium near Junction 10a of the M1 motorway. The club now wants to build a 20,000 seat stadium adjacent to Junction 12 to the north of the town and optimistically wants to be installed for the start of the 2008/09 season.

The club blames the change of plan on the recent announcement of the draft Master Plan for the development of London Luton Airport. The airport’s Master Plan will be submitted as a planning application in 2007 and even though there will be a public enquiry the proposals for a new runway include a shift of the proposed public safety zone from its initial position to a location right over the club’s planned relocation site. The club has had to end eighteen months of negotiations with the current owners of the planned site, Stockwood Park Property Holdings, and to start discussions with the owners of the new planned 200 acre site and with the local authority. However, speaking on local radio South Bedfordshire District Council chief executive John Ruddock has said that the change of plan putting the planned stadium into the authority’s area of jurisdiction means that there would be a lot of issues to be resolved before Luton would be given permission for a new home stadium.