Emerald Headingley Stadium, the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club and rugby league club Leeds Rhinos, has reached the end of a £45m (€51.4m/$57.4m) redevelopment project.
The final piece of a project that commenced in the summer of 2017 has fitted into place with the inauguration of a new joint North/South Stand overlooking both the rugby pitch and cricket ground.
The North Stand of the rugby league ground was used for the first time on Thursday evening as the Rhinos fell to a 30-8 Super League defeat against Castleford Tigers. Meanwhile, the new South Stand of the cricket ground will make its debut as Headingley, which is located in Leeds, hosts a one-day international between England and Pakistan on Sunday.
The new combined stand, which replaced a 90-year-old structure, has 4,200 seats for cricket and 3,800 for rugby. The new South Stand for the rugby ground, which had opened previously, has a capacity of 7,700 with 2,200 seats.
The redevelopment has been made possible by a partnership between Legal & General and Leeds City Council. It has been designed to ensure Headingley’s long-term future as a host of major events, with the new-look cricket ground due to host games during the 2019 World Cup, which gets underway in England and Wales later this month.
“Emerald Headingley Stadium is a truly iconic venue which as the home of Yorkshire CCC, Leeds Rhinos and Yorkshire Carnegie, is loved and celebrated by people across the world,” Leader of Leeds City Council, Councillor Judith Blake, said, according to the Yorkshire Evening Post newspaper.
“We were determined to find to a way to ensure that top-class sport could continue to be played at Headingley through the redevelopment of the stadium. I am delighted to say that in Legal & General we met an organisation who very much shared this ambition.”
For more information about the project, please visit the stadium website by clicking here.
Image: DLA Design Group
