Luton Town’s Power Court plans successfully validated

Following Luton Town Football Club’s recent announcement that a detailed planning application for Power Court had been submitted to Luton Borough Council, the process has now been formally and successfully validated. This means all of the documents submitted by the Club and 2020 Developments are now in the public domain and available to peruse on the council’s website.

Luton Town Chief Executive, Gary Sweet, said of the validation:

We wish to place on record our gratitude to the Council’s officers and planning team for their promptness in validating these extensive set of plans.

On 13 September 2024, Luton Town Football Club’s development company, 2020 Developments, formally submitted a detailed application for a new 25,000-capacity stadium at its Power Court site in the heart of Luton town centre.

The submission of detailed plans to Luton Borough Council marked a defining milestone in the delivery of a sustainable long-term home for Luton Town Football Club, the increasing ambitions the Club has for its football team, and as a vital catalyst in marking a regenerative era for the town.

The hybrid application provided full detail on the stadium and included an updated outline submission for the hotel and music venue. This pack, which includes a core Design and Access Statement supported by a variety of technical reports, was delivered to the Council’s Planning Office on 13th September and has now been formally validated by officers.

Speaking prior to the plans’ validation by the Council, Gary Sweet, Chief Executive of Luton Town Football Club and 2020 Developments, 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 capacity stadium 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.

I personally want to take this opportunity to give a huge thanks to the entire team of specialist technicians who have submerged themselves into this colossal task so efficiently and to do so by breaking the mould in stadium design. They have pushed the boundaries beyond the norm in order to remain loyal to our original desired look and feel and have incorporated more unique cultural characteristics that will make this a familiar home for us all.

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Together with sustained progression on the pitch and re-stating the Club’s cultural identity and community work off it, the delivery of a new home was going to be the key cornerstone to be accomplished when the 2020 group became custodians of the Club in 2008.

It was known from the very outset that identifying a site such as Power Court, with all its inherent technical and commercial challenges, was an ambitious ask – but the 2020 board was unwavering in its desire to embed the Football Club into the heart of the community and town.

Furthermore, there was a robust belief that the technical brief that challenged the design team needed to include characteristics that embodied the atmosphere, intimacy and intensity of Kenilworth Road; that positive emotional spirit that has been precious to so many past generations will be carried forward for the future generations of Luton to enjoy in an innovative, modern form.

The Club will now focus on engaging with and assisting Luton Borough Council’s officers to work towards a determination date before the end of the year, thereby enabling material stadium construction to commence on site within six months of such determination, as we move towards a target completion of 2027.

The latest stadium designs can be viewed online here.

Michael Moran, Chief Operating Officer of 2020 Developments, said:

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.

In addition to, we hope, a truly unique stadium that will resonate with all football supporters, we are committed to achieving a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating to demonstrate our intent to achieve a sustainable environment in support of the Luton 2040 initiative.

Chairman of Luton Town Football Club and 2020 Holdings, David Wilkinson, added:

As an invested observer into this project it was staggering to see the amount of work that has gone into every detail, with such exceptional craftmanship.

We appreciate some may be anxious to see some visible progress – as indeed we all are – but the sheer volume of forced changes brought about by society, politics, economic forces and our very own growth, has ultimately led to a bigger, better, more ambitious, more beautiful and more sustainable end product which we are all excited to present.

We all need to positively get behind our team now to hope that, while we watch the cranes put the concrete and steel in place, the wonderful new stadium debuts as the home to a Premier League team.

Project Team:

AECOM + SISA, supported by Klaska and Trivandi, have been appointed as the design team for the stadium and public realm for the pre-planning stage of the new Power Court development.

Additionally, the application is supported by:

AKT II – Structural engineering

Max Fordham – Mechanical & electrical engineering and sustainability consultants

WSP – Planning consultants

Atkins Realis – Cost consultancy & project management

KMC – Highways & transport consultants

Buro Happold – Crowd and pedestrian analysis

Civic Engineers – Site civils engineering

OFR – Fire consultants

Cotswold Archaeology – Heritage & archaeology consultants

JW Consultants – Ecology & biodiversity consultants

AECOM – Landscaping consultants

Pinsent Masons – Planning legal advisers

CMS – Contractor and commercial legal advisers

If you want to read all about every detail about the project, just click here.

Source & imagery, courtesy: Luton Town

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