These are exhilarating times to be a Nottingham Forest fan. Despite Saturday’s defeat at Fulham, European football beckons next season. Attendances are higher than at any time since the European Cup-winning years almost half a century ago and, though you might have heard this line before, the club are inching closer to beginning their long-awaited stadium development.
‘About time!’ might be your response. And yes, glaciers have moved quicker than the planning processes that will allow Forest to modernise and expand the 30,400-capacity City Ground, starting by replacing its 60-year-old Peter Taylor Stand.
Yet the thought did occur, walking along the River Thames to Craven Cottage for Saturday’s game, that it might be worth the wait.
Head through Bishops Park, past the lake and the walled garden, and the first glimpse of the Riverside, Fulham’s £130m new stand, is a soaring reminder of how a piece of modern architecture can reshape a much-loved football stadium.
But it has taken Fulham years to get to this stage and, similar to Forest, there have been more hold-ups and complications than they would probably care to remember – not least, according to their former manager Kevin Keegan’s autobiography, a problem with a species of snail that inhabits that part of the Thames.
“It was the discovery of the pseudotrichia rubiginosa, otherwise known as the ‘hairy German snail’,” writes Keegan, who was in charge for two seasons in the late 1990s. “Apparently, it was one of the most endangered molluscs in England and that meant we had to shelve our plans for that side of the ground. I have known a few hairy Germans in my time, but that one was a particularly difficult opponent.”
Fulham’s new Riverside Stand shows what can be achieved with stadium redevelopment – if you’re patient (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)
Forest have not had any snail issues. They did, however, encounter one unforeseen issue when an ecological survey found a bats’ roost next to the stand they want to demolish. Follow-up surveys were ordered and, on August 15 and September 12 last year, a team of conservationists settled in for the night, wearing EchoMeter Touch bat detectors and Whisker Night Fox vision aids. No bat roosts were found, but there was a flutter of excitement, according to a 15-page report, at 8.07pm on the second night when a “single common pipistrelle passed through the site on a quick transitory flight”.
Oh, the drama.
So, yes, it is not quite as simple as bringing in the bulldozers and then knocking up a replacement. Archaeological studies have investigated the potential for unearthing Roman remains. The risk of flooding has been assessed, then reassessed, then reassessed again. Highways reports have been commissioned. Drainage experts, sunlight specialists, energy boffins, flood-risk experts and more have been summoned — even someone to check the Japanese knotweed on nearby Scarrington Road. At the last count, 1,875 documents had been lodged with Rushcliffe Borough Council, the local planning authority, as well as 2,565 public comments.
Finally, though, we appear to be getting closer to finalising the list of obligations that means Forest, legally, have to devote significant funding to improving the local infrastructure, including new bus shelters, pedestrian crossings and all sorts of other financial arrangements recognising the impact of the club having a bigger stadium.
It is called an S106 agreement and, in this case, it will mean Forest paying £150,000 for the upkeep of the Trent Bridge, £1m for bus services, £50,000 on canal towpaths, £200,000 for cycle lanes and another £50,000 on electronic public-transport displays.
Compensation of £1.2m has also been agreed with the Britannia Boat Club, next door to the stadium, to demolish its current building and erect a replacement further along the River Trent. That figure, however, was decided in 2021 and may end up being higher.
A boat club next to the City Ground will need to be relocated to accommodate the new stand (Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images)
Forest’s initial plan was to put up a 19-storey residential block (later reduced to 12) and sell its 169 apartments, putting the money raised towards these costs. That would mean hundreds of people moving into the area. As such, the draft S106 agreement requires the club to give £326,421 to nearby schools and £23,578 to two medical centres.
Financially, though, does it still make sense to build those flats? Forest employed property experts Savills to examine the pros and cons, bearing in mind the rising costs of the building industry. The verdict, delivered in a 38-page report on February 5, is that “build-cost inflation has far outpaced sales-value growth in the area, meaning the viability of the proposed scheme has deteriorated”.
All the delays, in other words, have come back to bite Forest. And, at another club, that might have been a serious problem when the estimated cost of building a three-tier, 10,000-seat stand is now £130m, compared to £80m when the plans were announced in January 2019.
But Forest’s owner, the Greek businessman Evangelos Marinakis, has exceptionally deep pockets.
“The value of the residential development falls considerably short of funding the new stand,” Savills writes in a document received by the council last month. “The project will be in deficit and rely on a significant amount of the stadium development cost being underwritten by the club’s benefactor.”
So when is all this going to happen? That is the question, more than any other, that Forest supporters want answered and, realistically, it seems unlikely to be this year.
Other documents also appear to confirm the redevelopment has been pencilled in for summer 2026.
In a separate planning application, submitted in 2024, Forest lodged plans to create a private lift for Marinakis’ executive lounge at the back of the Peter Taylor Stand. The lift, according to the club’s developers, IBA Planning, was required only “for a temporary period… to tie in with the end of the 2025-26 season and the wider works on the redevelopment of the Peter Taylor main stand”.
Although Forest are not currently in a position to make a firm announcement, it is also worth noting the club distanced themselves from a recent online video showing a tour guide telling visitors work will begin this summer.
The next stage is for the planning application to be reconsidered by the council at an unspecified date “in late spring”. The council issued a resolution to grant permission in July 2022, but so long has passed since that it now wants to reassess the plans. Then, if everything is approved again, Forest have informed the council, via their planning agents, that they are in a position to sign the S106 agreement at “the earliest opportunity”. And that will mean work can begin.
Inside the club, they are already planning for what might be, logistically, their biggest challenge since the 1968 Main Stand fire led to Forest playing six ‘home’ games at neighbours Notts County’s Meadow Lane on the other side of the river.
Season ticket holders will be relocated. Directors and guests, and possibly the media, are expected to move into the corner-box development. Temporary changing rooms will have to be created. The Peter Taylor Stand would be fully demolished but, in another sense, all that rich history will not be going far. As part of the planning agreement, Forest will recycle an estimated 5,800 tonnes of concrete in the building of its replacement.
As part of the redevelopment, club officials held talks last year with Forest’s branch of the Hillsborough Survivors’ Alliance, as well as the fans’ advisory board, about the possibility of creating a memorial for the victims of the 1989 disaster.
One former Forest manager used to confide that he never believed the redevelopment would happen. Many of the club’s fans have become sceptical, too, as a result of all the delays.
At this stage, however, maybe it is better to take an attitude of better late than never. Forest, after all, have spent millions getting this far, six years into the project.
As well as bringing in more revenue for the club, the new stand would boost Nottingham’s economy by £13million a year, according to one report commissioned by the club. It would also create more than 250 new jobs. Forest’s workforce has gone up from 958 to 1,273 since promotion back to the Premier League in summer 2022. The club estimate this figure will be 1,537 once the ground’s capacity has risen.
Ultimately, though, this plan is only an increase of 5,000 seats at a time when Forest’s data suggests they could fill a 42,000-seat stadium or go even bigger than that, making it a realistic possibility last year that the club might decide to leave the City Ground, their home since 1898, and move to a new 50,000-capacity arena in Toton, a southern district of the city on the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border.
Toton railway sidings, one possible stadium site considered by Forest (Rui Vieira/PA Images via Getty Images)
How close did that come to being a reality? Well, not hugely, but the idea was absolutely serious. Plans had been drawn up. Site visits had taken place. Introductory meetings had been held with officials from Broxtowe Borough Council, the relevant planning authority. There had even been talks about which kind of trees to plant on the approach to the proposed site. Internally, they had talked about Toton being the world’s first carbon-free stadium.
Most Forest fans will be glad the idea was abandoned and that the club eventually came to a provisional agreement with their landlords, Nottingham City Council, to buy the freehold for the City Ground for around £8m-£9m.
It is a bit unusual, seven months on, that the deal has not been formalised. But Forest have always stated that, before signing off such an agreement, they want to be certain they will get the relevant planning permission.
If everything goes according to plan, the next stage would be to submit plans to redevelop the Bridgford Stand, where away fans are currently located.
That is not going to be straightforward, especially now Forest have cut ties with Tom Cartledge, their former chairman, whose architectural firm, Benoy, had previously been given carte blanche to redesign the City Ground.
Cartledge was a long-term Forest fan in his dream job, but he could divide opinion behind the scenes. His 13-month spell as chairman ended on October 1 and the club said at the time he would remain on their board to oversee the redevelopment. Instead, he was removed as a director on November 26, without an official announcement.
In between, a delegation from another architectural firm, Foster + Partners, visited on October 21, taking in the 1-0 win over Crystal Palace that Monday evening.
Foster + Partners, based in London, is helping with the masterplan to redevelop Manchester United’s Old Trafford and also has Qatar’s Lusail stadium on its portfolio, working in conjunction with Populous, a global architectural firm renowned for its stadium expertise.
Populous worked extensively with Lina Souloukou, Forest’s new chief executive, on Roma’s new stadium project, while she held a similar position with the Italian club. Populous also designed Tottenham Hotspur’s replacement for White Hart Lane and collaborated with Foster + Partners over the Dammam Aramco Stadium, which is planned for the 2034 men’s World Cup in Saudi Arabia. As yet, however, there is no confirmation that the club’s initial consultation with Foster + Partners has led to anything further.
Benoy had already drawn up plans for the Bridgford Stand, creating space for thousands of extra seats by removing the current roof and building a new, higher version that would mean the end of its current lopsided appearance.
The current, lopsided Bridgford Stand at the City Ground (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
So, will Forest stick with that “masterplan”? Or is there scope to be more adventurous given this is the one side of the ground that has no function rooms or marketing suites? Could the club create a larger, more sophisticated structure that sweeps around to the new Peter Taylor Stand? Or how about a Kop-style bank of seats? How ambitious will Forest be?
GO DEEPER
Should three at the back become Nottingham Forest’s Plan B again?
That is the bottom line here.
Yes, Saturday’s 2-1 loss to Fulham was a setback, yet Forest are still third in the 2024-25 Premier League after 25 of the 38 matches, with a chance to play in the Champions League next season and an ambitious owner who has talked about the City Ground going up to a capacity of 50,000 one day.
How that could ever happen is not clear.
But if this is not a time for the club to think ambitiously, when is?
(Top photo: Michael Regan/Getty Images)
