Nottingham Forest's revamped City Ground will look great, but the work is not done yet

New York Times

4 days ago

In total, it has taken 2,310 days just to reach this point. At the last count, there were 1,923 planning documents on file. Add to that 2,585 public comments and more complications — bat roosts, bus stops, Japanese knotweed and a whole load more besides — than Nottingham Forest had ever anticipated.
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So, yes, it is fair to say the relevant people have found the planning processes challenging, to say the least, since unveiling proposals for a new-look City Ground in February 2019 and optimistically floating the idea that everything would be ready within two and a half years.
The story so far has been long and tortuous — torturous, even — and, at one point, featured a now-abandoned proposal to quit their scenic riverside setting in favour of a 50,000-seat bowl in Toton, south of the city on the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border. 'Toton is a sh**hole,' the Forest crowd sang in response. But, for a while, the club were deadly serious about making it happen.
Instead, Forest have reverted to Plan A, even though the stadium's location, right next to the River Trent, brings inevitable issues. The risk of flooding has been assessed, then reassessed, then reassessed again (the Environment Agency initially objected to the plans). Highways reports have been commissioned. There have been drainage experts, sunlight specialists, energy boffins — even archaeological studies to investigate the potential for unearthing Roman remains.
And, finally, we appear to be nearing the point when a date can be pencilled in to demolish the loyal, dutiful, but ageing Peter Taylor Stand and replace it with a modern, sleek main stand that will be a considerable upgrade on, well, one that was put up in 1965.
The matter will be heard by the local authority, Rushcliffe Borough Council, on Thursday (6pm UK time), and it recommends that planning permission should be granted. And then — hey presto — Forest fans can start looking forward to the first major redevelopment of the stadium since 1994, and perhaps the biggest statement of the Evangelos Marinakis ownership era to date.
The new structure will have five floors, a club shop, all sorts of hospitality facilities and a cantilever roof that, at 38 metres (124ft), will make it the tallest of the stadium's four stands.
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Nobody should be too enthused about the block of 170 apartments that will go up beside the stadium to help finance everything through rental agreements. Overall, though, it is a big moment in the club's modern history — exciting, too, especially if it means Forest officially taking over the freehold for the land the stadium sits on (a provisional £9million to £10m sale was agreed with Nottingham City Council, the club's landlords, last summer but is still waiting, almost a year on, for the final sign-off).
Ultimately, though, the new stand will increase the ground's 30,400 capacity only by another 5,000 seats at a time when Forest's data shows they could have sold 50,000 tickets for some games since their return to the Premier League three years ago. Similarly, the new 'corner box', constructed for £7million between the Trent End and Brian Clough Stand, has created space for only 180 more spectators.
More needs to be done to accommodate the thousands who cannot get tickets to Forest home games and that is never going to be straightforward, plainly, when the next phase involves redeveloping the stand that — here's a suggestion about a nice, easy way to kick off everything — really ought to be renamed in honour of John Robertson.
Why Robertson? Well, it should be obvious — we are talking about the greatest player in the club's history, scorer of the goal that won the 1980 European Cup final and supplier of the cross for Trevor Francis to head in the winner during the same game a year earlier.
An online petition started a while back. The idea has been discussed more than once at the top of the club and it was interesting to see one of their players from the 1990s, Paul McGregor, adding his name to the petition. 'Have signed this,' the former striker announced. 'Our greatest ever player and one of my favourite human beings. Where are you sitting? 'Robbo Stand, mate'. It's just right, innit?'.
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For now, though, that southeastern part of the ground is known as the Bridgford Stand (West Bridgford being the area of the city it backs on to) and redevelopment will be tricky, in the extreme, because of the local opposition that many Forest fans consider, rightly or wrongly, to be NIMBY-ism — Not In My Back Yard syndrome.
For context, consider the plans for the Peter Taylor Stand and the objections lodged by the Lady Bay Community Association, the Central West Bridgford Community Association, and various others.
One councillor cited issues about how the increased crowd size might affect the local wi-fi. Among 116 letters of objection, residents complained about parking concerns, litter problems and potential traffic congestion. And it can seem strange sometimes that so many people have chosen to live beside a football ground (which has been there, lest it be forgotten, since 1898) without realising matchdays will attract big crowds, heavy traffic and potential inconvenience.
The people making these objections might argue that, unless you live in the area yourself, you cannot fully appreciate what it is like. And fair enough: a bigger City Ground will mean bigger crowds at its games and, in turn, more pressure on the local infrastructure.
At the same time, it is worth repeating that Forest are devoting significant funding to pay for the upkeep of the surrounding roads, as well as new bus shelters, pedestrian crossings and various other financial obligations — even a £12,240 payment, for reasons not fully explained, to the local allotments.
It is known, in planning terms, as an S106 agreement and in this case it includes Forest paying £1million for improved bus services, £50,000 for canal towpaths, £200,000 for cycle lanes and £1.2m compensation to Nottingham Rowing Club on the basis that its Britannia Boat House, now adjacent to the stadium, will be demolished and then rebuilt further along the River Trent.
As for the economic impact of having more people visiting the city, booking its restaurants and hotel rooms, one report commissioned by the club estimated it would be worth £13million a year to Nottingham and create another 250 jobs.
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Either way, kudos to Pete Vallelly, author of several books on Forest's history, who made his point in the form of a letter, posted on the council's planning portal last week, reminding all interested parties that 'the club — and local infrastructure — withstood attendances of nigh on 50,000 spectators in the 1960s'.
A while back, The Athletic was invited into Forest's boardroom to see the 'masterplan' for a 40,000-capacity City Ground, featuring a new, higher roof on the Bridgford Stand. It was an obvious upgrade and had 'NFFC' spelt out in white seats across a red backdrop.
Yet a higher roof would not change the fact there is absolutely nothing going on inside that stand — no restaurants, no bars, no function rooms — unless a football match is happening out on the pitch.
Surely, therefore, it would be better to knock it down and start again with more ambitious designs — be imaginative, create something special that would also have the facilities to bring in revenue on non-matchdays.
Easier said than done, of course, and if you have ever wondered why the current roof has a lopsided look, the reason for the dip is to stop the nearest houses on Colwick Road from having their sunlight blocked out.
That remains a big issue and, as such, Forest have stated their intention to start buying up those homes. So far, however, they own only two — numbers 21 and 23, the ones closest to the ground — and neither is a new acquisition. Plus, don't just assume that the street's current householders will agree to sell.
There is, in short, a long way to go. Realistically, we are still several years away from the City Ground being the stadium that everyone, from Marinakis down, wants it to be.
It is moving in the right direction, though, and if everything goes according to plan, Forest have talked internally about demolishing the Peter Taylor Stand next year. Work on the new stand will take 18 months and, though that means a lot of disruption, the idea is to open it up in phases, starting with the bottom tier.
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Is it overdue? Yes. Has it been a headache? Crikey, yes. But will everything, ultimately, be worthwhile? Absolutely.
The new-look City Ground will be brilliant — it will just be even more impressive with a bigger and better 'John Robertson Stand' to help with Forest's brave new world.