There is ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ in Nottingham Forest’s bid to expand the City Ground’s capacity to more than 50,000, says chairman Nicholas Randall.
Plans for an expansion project have been in the works since 2019, at which point the idea was to only modestly increase the size from its current 30,445 seats to around 35,000.
Multiple setbacks and revisions have taken place since then, including Covid-19 curtailing the original plan, a row with Nottingham City Council over the lease of the ground, and a reimagining of how big the stadium could actually need to be.
The latest proposals, submitted in January, are for a complete overhaul of the ground, including the demolition of the Peter Taylor Stand, and a goal to ultimately host 52,500 fans.
The Premier League side, who were promoted to the top flight in 2022 and reached the semi-finals of this season’s Europa League, are now waiting for what they hope is the final granting of permission they will need from Rushcliffe Borough Council. And Mr Randall, who was reappointed as chairman in October 2024 after a six-year stint at the club, said it appeared the end was near in terms of the club getting the green light when he spoke at the UK Real Estate, Investment and Infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF) in Leeds on Wednesday 20 May.
He said: “In order to sustain what we have built so far, we need a world-class stadium. We need significant capacity. “This development gives us the potential to be a properly established Premier League team, regularly competing for European places and to have a very strong women’s team. This project is something we are very, very delighted and excited about. “Neil (Clarke, Rushcliffe Borough Council leader) has been fantastic, Claire (Ward, East Midlands Mayor) has been fantastic, and we’ve had some developments this week where we’ve got central government really piling in as well, so there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”
The expansion plans submitted in 2019 included an expanded Peter Taylor Stand and the construction of a block of flats nearby, which would be sold in part to fund the stadium’s construction. They were approved in 2022, but continued to change over time.
Then, in 2024, Nottingham City Council, which owns the City Ground freehold, decided that the Reds were paying far too little in rent at £250,000 per year and increased that price by 300% to £1m.
The city council then agreed to sell the land to the club instead, solving the problem, but Forest said their decision to buy it would rest on planning permission being approved.
A new iteration of the 2022 plans was then approved in July last year, paving the way for the purchase of the freehold. But in December, Forest announced yet more changes, including a plan for a phased process of increasing capacity first to 48,000 before the final figure of more than 52,000 is reached.
Mr Randall was speaking at a UKREiiF showcase of local plans to market the City Ground and the surrounding area, including other sporting sites such as Trent Bridge cricket ground and the National Watersports Centre, as the ‘Trent Sports District’. He said: “This development of the Trent area is something we’re delighted to be involved in. I think, for some, it gets taken for granted almost. This whole project will be absolutely fantastic for the area and fantastic for us. “In my position at the club, it’s a strange place because you have your everyday fans, obviously you need to look after them, but you’re also keenly aware there’s a whole community out there.
“Many of them don’t even watch football. Others watch Notts County. We have this obligation to drive forward and to leave the club in a much better place than what we inherited. The stadium expansion will obviously have a dramatic economic impact, we hope, on the region as a whole.” The chairman also explained that, while the club currently caps season ticket numbers at 20,000, there are 17,000 fans on the waiting list, with that figure only “scratching the surface of the potential crowds we believe we can get”.
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