The Luton thread

[That Fat Centre Half]

Further “trouble at mill” for us brewing.

We hosted England under 21 last night at Kenilworth Road. Apparently the FA insisted that the flag which hangs in the ground which says “Betrayed by the FA” was covered up. Fans not happy at all with that and a statement given by Luton ST hasn’t quelled that.

Another in a long line of bad communication issues from the club this summer, compounded by an at best indifferent start to the season.

Not sure what but something is quite amiss at the moment with how the club is doing things that’s all together different from the previous 10 years or so.

 

[Super_horns]

Your new ground looks impressive.

Be about time !

Shame COVID came when you were making good progress .

 

[Kenneth E End]

This is a tremendous day for Luton Town Football Club. No project has ever got to the Detailed Planning stage - not even close. With the finances and business plan in place, I have absolute confidence that the club will be moving to Power Court in 2027.

Three seasons left - get the "back garden entrance" in while you can. Maybe around 70 games left at the stadium before it becomes houses for the local community.

For those who don't know the detail, the stadium will be situated right in the heart of the town - it could barely be more central. It is going to be around 5 minutes walk from Luton Station and maybe 15-20 minutes walk from Luton Airport Parkway. The wider area from the airport to the town centre will become unrecognisable from 10 years ago.

Whilst the plans have been revised since the original plans were released in 2016, it remains an ambitious project which also includes homes for about 1000 people, a music venue, medical centre and a selection of bars and restaurants. The land at Newlands Park near M1 J10 is already being built on, having been sold-off for £53M a few years ago as the "enabling development". The Premier League money has allowed the club to be more ambitious; skipping the gradual capacity stage, going directly up to 25,000 seats.

For those who frequent Luton during the week will see that the town centre becomes a ghost town after 6pm. With this, people can stick around the town for longer as well as an area for congregating before and after matches.

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

The documents submitted to the council have been made publically available. Read them tonight and hard not to get excited about it, it’s clear the Premier League money has really allowed the club to put some extras in there and really make it that bit better.

This thread does a good job of providing visuals and the key points without having to go through the council documents for non Town fans

https://twitter.com/x/status/1838636586315190673

 

[Kenneth E End]

Some good info here (unashamedly stolen but modified from the Luton message board)…

General
• Music venue will be corner near the train station and can contain 1,800 people, but not to be included fully in this application. I sense it probably won’t be active until after the stadium is fully built.
• Hotel is opposite car park in the mall and will host 100/150 beds
• Ground floor contains changing rooms, media, with pub, cafe, club shop and ticket office on West stand. Small retail outlet to south and large commercial on east stand
• The north of the stadium will be slightly raised to allow a basement level to have working and storage stuff

Outside
• Music venue looks like a cube shape/thing
• 2 temp fan zones for 1,800 people
• Directors and officials/players parking will be in the north west under the music venue
• Fan zone, pub, cafe, shop, museum, 10 food outlet places outside stadium
• 1,200 match day parking spaces, with an extra 312 in the stadium for media etc
• 6 residential blocks of 1,200 people. Would presume average price to be ~£200-250K based on today’s rates.
• Shuttle buses and potential match day coaches to get people to the ground but assumed that most parking positions would still be available as they are at Kenilworth Rd bar the 150 or so who park on this site alresdy.

Stadium
• 19,037 home fans and 2,903 away (North east) which will be the closest point to the railway station. 5 minutes walk.
• 3,060 are assumed to be other hospitality
• Lower tier to hold 15,545 and upper 9,455.
• West and south stand is 2 tier all seated.
• North is 1 tier all standing. Looks to be a steep, low ceiling stand which will create a lot of atmosphere.
• East is 2 tier with standing and then seating.
• 3 corners to have seating pods with 1 corner to be tv media/security room. Pods to make it feel like the David Preece Stand.
• Tunnel club which is special match day hospitality.
• Hospitality on 2nd floor to be mid tier and can host events.
• Hospitality on 3rd and 4th tier for directors etc.
• Entrance through turnstiles is through the corners of the stadium.

 

[Caitlyn]

Your new ground looks impressive.

Be about time !

Shame COVID came when you were making good progress .

Yes and also the owners of the Arndale kicked up a fuss!

 

[Caitlyn]

The documents submitted to the council have been made publically available. Read them tonight and hard not to get excited about it, it’s clear the Premier League money has really allowed the club to put some extras in there and really make it that bit better.

This thread does a good job of providing visuals and the key points without having to go through the council documents for non Town fans

https://twitter.com/x/status/1838636586315190673

Glad we are keeping the halo from the previous design concept.

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

Final planning permission granted for the stadium last night. No more applications or court proceedings to go just need to get the thing built now! Some good news in an indifferent at best season for us.

As someone who hasn’t paid much attention to it in the past, the planning process has been a massive eye opener for me. The amount of hold up, delay and waste of time and money to just getting to this point where there is still the actual build to go, has been incredible.

Planning system in this country needs some serious reform. No wonder public infrastructure is in such a state

 

[Super_horns]

That is good news - hopefully.

Long over due !

 

[Kenneth E End]

That is good news - hopefully.

Long over due !

This is excellent news… it is the final hurdle in a process which started in 2016 on this site. It means that Luton have around 60 games left at Kenilworth Road.

The groundworks have been ongoing for some time - the stadium will likely start to be built in the first half of next year. This will unlock the next stage and activity in theory should increase substantially into next year.

Say what you like about Starmer and Johnson but at least they want to get things built and done. The amount of dither and delay in this project has been ridiculous; comments made by members of planning committees that are ill informed or simply incoherent wastes everyone time.

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

In a very on brand situation for us this season. Tom Lockyer was close to making a return to action for under 21s this week, but injured his ankle in training and requires surgery.

God knows what we do in training - the past year ive never seen a side pick up so many injuries from "training"

 

[Luke Imp]

Planning system in this country needs some serious reform. No wonder public infrastructure is in such a state

People rightly point to the NHS and other areas because everyone comes across it or knows someone who has but I don't think people quite realise what a farce the planning system is and how long winded and red tape strewn it is.

I had an idea it was ridiculous because of family friends who've been through it for relatively simple things like a garage or home extension but the family are going through the system at the minute for 5no properties and, bearing in mind it's supposed to be a 6 week turnaround (down from 12 weeks because the previous Government thought Council Planning Departments were taking the piss) it's been 7 months, with probably another 2 months to go. Planners always leave it until last minute to notify you of something else they need, which then triggers an extension of time because they've left it so late to a previous deadline (generally 4-6 weeks), and it goes on, and on, and on. They don't give you a list of everything they're waiting on, they drip feed it in to buy themselves time. And in our situation, the Council even crystallised issues for us when it was initially rejected, which took a similar amount of time first time round!

The amount of reports (and costs), is crazy. None of them are super, super expensive (relatively speaking) but they all add up to a pretty penny! And that's even before you get to the NIMBY brigade who come out with some weird and wonderful comments like the roots of a new tree on the other side of a fence might cause issues with the new build foundations in 10 years or so, or they'll lose a parking space for friends and family, even though they're parking across an entrance, which isn't even theirs or on their property!).

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

People rightly point to the NHS and other areas because everyone comes across it or knows someone who has but I don't think people quite realise what a farce the planning system is and how long winded and red tape strewn it is.

I had an idea it was ridiculous because of family friends who've been through it for relatively simple things like a garage or home extension but the family are going through the system at the minute for 5no properties and, bearing in mind it's supposed to be a 6 week turnaround (down from 12 weeks because the previous Government thought Council Planning Departments were taking the piss) it's been 7 months, with probably another 2 months to go. Planners always leave it until last minute to notify you of something else they need, which then triggers an extension of time because they've left it so late to a previous deadline (generally 4-6 weeks), and it goes on, and on, and on. They don't give you a list of everything they're waiting on, they drip feed it in to buy themselves time. And in our situation, the Council even crystallised issues for us when it was initially rejected, which took a similar amount of time first time round!

The amount of reports (and costs), is crazy. None of them are super, super expensive (relatively speaking) but they all add up to a pretty penny! And that's even before you get to the NIMBY brigade who come out with some weird and wonderful comments like the roots of a new tree on the other side of a fence might cause issues with the new build foundations in 10 years or so, or they'll lose a parking space for friends and family, even though they're parking across an entrance, which isn't even theirs or on their property!).

Totally agree. Been an eye opening experience for sure. Without wishing to make this a thread that’s not about football The NIMBY mindset in the country is absolutely killing it as a decent place to live.

Just one very small example of how it impacts mundane things. In the town I live people have been complaining at how poor the phone signal is in the area, and it really is quite bad.

Yet don’t draw the correlation that being dead against building some relatively inconspicuous masts which would solve the problem is the fundamental root cause. So we all just carry on grumbling, being generally unhappy with just about everything but not actually DOING anything to resolve it. And that’s one mundane thing, let alone big infrastructure issues like connecting northern cities, or back to the point, improving Luton town centre by developing what amounts to a wasteland right at its centre

This mindset is slowly but surely removing us from the top table of prosperous nations.

 

[Valeite]

People rightly point to the NHS and other areas because everyone comes across it or knows someone who has but I don't think people quite realise what a farce the planning system is and how long winded and red tape strewn it is.

I had an idea it was ridiculous because of family friends who've been through it for relatively simple things like a garage or home extension but the family are going through the system at the minute for 5no properties and, bearing in mind it's supposed to be a 6 week turnaround (down from 12 weeks because the previous Government thought Council Planning Departments were taking the piss) it's been 7 months, with probably another 2 months to go. Planners always leave it until last minute to notify you of something else they need, which then triggers an extension of time because they've left it so late to a previous deadline (generally 4-6 weeks), and it goes on, and on, and on. They don't give you a list of everything they're waiting on, they drip feed it in to buy themselves time. And in our situation, the Council even crystallised issues for us when it was initially rejected, which took a similar amount of time first time round!

The amount of reports (and costs), is crazy. None of them are super, super expensive (relatively speaking) but they all add up to a pretty penny! And that's even before you get to the NIMBY brigade who come out with some weird and wonderful comments like the roots of a new tree on the other side of a fence might cause issues with the new build foundations in 10 years or so, or they'll lose a parking space for friends and family, even though they're parking across an entrance, which isn't even theirs or on their property!).

Somebody I know is trying to get planning permission and one of the holdups was that there was a tree on the land that had the potential to house bats so a check had to be made to ensure there wasn`t any, madness.

 

[oakroader]

Don’t understand why newts and bats are more precious and protected than homeless people

 

[Luke Imp]

Somebody I know is trying to get planning permission and one of the holdups was that there was a tree on the land that had the potential to house bats so a check had to be made to ensure there wasn`t any, madness.

We've had bat bricks, bee bricks, bat access roof tiles and even tunnels under the driveway for hedgehogs etc suggested!

...and don't get me started on Biodiversity Net Gain, which I'm assuming Luton have escaped from the worst of because it only came into legal effect in April.

Anyway, enough of me whinging about planning, good news for Luton on getting it over the line!