Plans for a redeveloped Stamford Bridge, submitted to the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, give for the first time an in-depth view of how Roman Abramovich will completely rebuild Chelsea's home.

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The 130-page Environmental Impact Assessment for the development of the Blues' west London ground throws light on the four-year plan to build a 60,000+ capacity stadium.

This is not, at this stage, a full application for planning permission, but a preliminary stage in the development process. It seeks permission for “the demolition and comprehensive redevelopment of Stamford Bridge Grounds; to provide a new 60,000 seat football stadium; with ancillary stadium-related uses including club shop, kiosks and museum; retail and restaurant/café uses”.

It says this will come “together with the construction of structures to form platforms over sections of the District Line adjacent to Fulham Broadway Station to the north-west and the Southern mainline to the east, to provide an enlarged concourse area; new pedestrian access from Fulham Road; car parking; landscaping and related works”.

The full report accompanying the application, which runs to 130 pages, goes into considerable additional detail.

It says that stadium capacity will be increased from 41,840 to "approximately 61,000", with a more than doubling of the hospitality capacity to 10,431, and a small increase of 715 extra seats for season ticket holders.

The biggest areas of increase will be for general sale and young supporters – with 5,500 extra seats here. The away section will be reduced by 431, with a similar number of seats being reallocated for “players, directors, officials, disabled, media, etc”.

The Millennium and Copthorne hotels, presently let on a long lease, will be demolished and not replaced, and new platforms over the two adjoining railway lines will provide the additional space required to increase the capacity. Private residential apartments in the Chelsea Village development will be relocated off-site.

Access to the stadium will be via the existing entrances on the Fulham Road, with a new main entrance direct from Fulham Broadway station.

While the final structure will be what most interests fans, it is the nuts and bolts of the development process that will have the biggest impact on the Fulham Road area for the projected four-year construction period.

The schedule intends for work to begin at the end of the present season in May 2016, with the construction of platforms over the two railway lines that hem-in the site. The existing stadium will remain operational for a year after that, with its closure coming in May 2017 – and Chelsea exiled to a yet-to-be decided location for three seasons.

Demolition of the existing stadium will take a year, with around 100 trips to and from the site by heavy goods vehicles each day. At the peak of the process, the project is expected to employ 1,800 workers.

Chelsea fans watch the action at Stamford Bridge Image credit: Reuters

A great deal of the application deals with local environmental issues: from the discovery of Stone Age and earlier remains in the area, to the presence of listed buildings and growth of rare plants in Brompton Cemetery, to the likeliness of great crested newts inhabiting the vicinity.

These issues will be of little concern to most fans, but they are precisely the sort of matters than can cause potential delay to a development such as this, and the thoroughness of their examination at this early stage shows the lengths to which Roman Abramovich has seemingly gone to make this plan work.

The possibility of noise pollution has been addressed in a way that should please both fans and neighbours of the club. The new stadium is apparently “designed with noise in mind such that it contains as much spectator and public address system noise as possible'”.

The report accepts negatives include the potential impact on local businesses of Chelsea's three-year exile, but says these matters will be investigated further in a document to be published in due course.

A consultation on this stage of the proposals is due to close on 8 September.

Dan Levene - @BluesChronicle

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