Featured image credit: Luton Town
English Championship club Luton Town has submitted a detailed planning application for a new 25,000-capacity stadium at the Power Court site.
The club, together with its development company 2020 Developments, has formally submitted the application to Luton Borough Council. Luton said the submission marks a “defining milestone” in the delivery of a sustainable long-term home for the club.
The hybrid application will provide full detail on the stadium and will also include an updated outline submission for a hotel and music venue. The plans include a core design and access statement supported by a range of technical reports.
The application will be formally validated by council officers once everything is found to be complete. This process could take up to two weeks, and all documents will be in the public domain once they have been validated.
Luton’s plans for a new stadium have been in the works for some time. In May 2023, ahead of its Championship play-off final against Coventry City, the club said that “very good progress” was being made at Power Court as final designs were drawn up.
Luton defeated Coventry in the play-off final and spent last season in the Premier League, but finished 18th to drop back into the Championship for the 2024-25 campaign. In May, Luton chief executive Gary Sweet said that the revenue generated from the club’s one-season stay in the Premier League would allow it to open the new stadium at maximum capacity.
The Power Court stadium will act as the centrepiece of the wider regeneration of a 20-acre site adjacent to Luton Railway Station. Images released in May 2023 presented the stadium in its first phase of development at a capacity of 19,500, but the plans have been revised following the club’s short spell in the Premier League.
The club hopes to complete work on the new stadium by 2027.
Speaking following the submission of the planning application, Sweet said: “This important announcement is a pivotal moment for all supporters, residents and businesses of Luton. It also marks an important milestone for everyone who has worked tirelessly and diligently on the project over the last few months to shape it masterfully into the magnificent building we have presented to the planning officers.
“Once our lives changed 16 months ago with promotion at Wembley, concurrent to the gargantuan task of getting Kenilworth Road Premier League-ready – which naturally dominated our workload for most of last year – we decided to reassemble a design team to take a fresh look at the whole Power Court project from foundations upwards. All in light of the new ambition, we wanted to embrace for our club going forwards, demonstrated by the proposal to build to a 25,000 stadium capacity in one phase.
“We hand-picked and structured an elite design team of architects, engineers and technicians who have been working with us, crafting every floor and corner of our new stadium to a detailed stage such that it can now be submitted, publicly aired and presented as a well-prepared detailed design instruction for contractors.”
Michael Moran, chief operating officer of 2020 Developments, added: “Beginning with the original purchase of this site back in 2016, it has been a long process of concluding all the various associated land deals and legal consents, outline planning applications and then the various infrastructure challenges of moving a major sub-station and diverting the River Lea.
“Together with the recent confirmation of planning approval for our earthworks and site remediation efforts, our project team are now fully engaged on a construction timeline that would complete in 2027.”
Luton has played at the 10,300-seat Kenilworth Road since 1905. The stadium required significant upgrades ahead of last season, which forced Luton to postpone its first home match.
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