Crucial Decision on Major Stadium Redevelopment

A decision is due on enabling works for a major plan to transform the grounds around the Select Car Leasing Stadium into homes and a leisure destination.

The project, called 'Royal Elm Park' after the old West Reading ground, would include 600 apartments, a convention centre, an ice rink, a 246-room hotel and a new multi-storey car park with 616 spaces.

The scheme needs Reading Borough Council approval for crucial enabling works. The development was approved in 2018 and the applicant, Reading Football Club Property Company, must meet a number of legal obligations.

A key issue is contaminated land. The site was a landfill from 1972 to 1985 before becoming surface parking for the stadium when it opened in 1998, so waste and ground gases must be made safe.

Last year the company won approval for tweaks to contaminated land conditions to allow Phase 1 - the multi-storey car park - to begin. It has now applied to change the wording of those conditions to allow further works.

The proposed changes say land management and remedial works must continue until the council is satisfied waste and gases are unlikely to be a hazard. Ground gas risks should be assessed to British Standards and the company must pay a land management monitoring contribution until the hazard is removed.

The council's planning applications committee will decide on Wednesday, September 9. Alison Amoah, a principal planning officer, has recommended the revised wording be approved.

"The modifications proposed would align with the land contamination and gas remediation obligations with the contamination and land gas condition wording previously approved by officers and is, therefore, considered acceptable and it is therefore recommended that the variation sought is agreed."

You can view the application using reference PL/25/0705/DOV on the council planning portal.

James Aldridge, Local Democracy Reporter