Lord's Cricket Ground to get whole new stand in £200 million redevelopment

Extra seats: A CGI image of how the new development will look
Ruth Bloomfield26 October 2015

A £200 million redevelopment of Lord’s Cricket Ground - featuring a new stand, a pub within the perimeter of the stadium, and retractable seating which can be raised on match days - is set to be approved.

Marylebone Cricket Club hopes the improvements will be ready in time to host the Ashes series in 2022.

Westminster council’s planning committee is due to back the project at a meeting tomorrow. It will involve the demolition of two of Lord’s oldest stands, the Allen Stand which was built in 1935, and the Tavern Stand added in the mid-Sixties.

The scoreboard will be replaced, and retractable raked seating will be provided above it forming part of a new 5,200-seat stand which will also have two restaurants.

Boost: The development will take Lord's capacity above 30,000

The extra seats will bring the capacity of Lord’s to 30,530. Meanwhile the Thomas Lord Building, on St John’s Wood Road, which overlooks the ground and is used for corporate events and office space, will also be rebuilt.

There will be a new venue for the Thomas Lord pub with an extended beer garden and scorer’s box. The iconic Grade II* listed Pavilion will be refurbished with grander dressing rooms and a gym.

Residents say: 'More noise and traffic'

Recruitment worker Robert Weigl, 70, St John’s Wood: “I’m totally against it. There has been no consultation. We’ve had no information about what they are doing, when they are doing it or why they are doing it. It seems pointless and very arrogant.”

Former Page 3 model Stephanie Marrian, 67, St John’s Wood, left: “There’s enough noise pollution around here as it is. We also have an issue with parking and traffic so I imagine that will get worse. It’s bad enough around here on match days already. It will just mean more people falling out of pubs and it will be even busier.”

The proposals have angered some residents of flats around Lord’s, who claim the new Thomas Lord building will block sunlight from their homes and fear noise from the beer garden and new restaurants.

They question whether extra seats are necessary since the ground is rarely sold out. Norman Agran, whose home will be affected, objects to the plan — despite being a member of the MCC.

“There will be a considerable increase in noise and disturbance from an open-air pub directly under our windows,” he said. He is also concerned about the size of the new stand, which he fears will overshadow the historic Pavilion.

“In my opinion the Pavilion must remain the dominating structure at Lord’s and not be reduced to a quaint museum piece dwarfed by, and rendered subservient to, a 21st century structural behemoth,” he said.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in