Crystal Palace have cleared most of the formal barriers to begin work on the redevelopment of Selhurst Park, but costs have ballooned to around £150million ($184m).

The start of work to build a new 13,500-capacity Main Stand and improve other areas of the ground, which celebrates its 100th anniversary next year, has moved significantly closer after the relocation of nearby residents was completed.

The Athletic can also reveal:

Palace are in a tender process for a main contractor, with a view to starting work next summer

An agreement between Palace and Sainsbury’s for the small parcel of land in the supermarket car park was worth several million pounds

The mayor of London’s office has deferred decision-making to Croydon Council, effectively approving planning permission

Council officials had criticised Palace’s ‘poor’ communication with residents — an issue that has now been resolved

The redevelopment of the stadium is seen as being crucial to Palace’s ability to compete in the Premier League, with chairman Steve Parish saying it would provide an extra £20m-£30m each season.

Parish recently told Kammy and Ben’s Proper Football Podcast that his aim was to “start the stadium this time next year”.

A Palace spokesperson told The Athletic: “The Selhurst Park redevelopment project is progressing well — we have in place all the peripheral deals that are required for us to start construction and the club is now in a tender process with prospective construction partners. The start date will be subject to further discussions with the various consultants working on the project and our chosen construction partner.”

Finding new homes for the residents of Wooderson Close, which sits in the footprint of the proposed Main Stand, was considered the main hurdle to starting work, but that has now been overcome.

Residents of the six houses — five social homes and one privately owned — had to be found alternative housing within the Borough of Croydon. Although the planning agreement suggested Palace were required to give a 12-month notice period of their intention to purchase the homes, this was not a formal restriction on development and intended only as a safeguard for the residents, so is no longer relevant.

Those issues have now been resolved, meaning almost all of the regulatory restrictions on starting the development have been removed. The only possible obstacles would be if the secretary of state for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, decided to ‘call in’ the project, but the likelihood of that happening is vanishingly small.

Palace must sign an agreement under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (S106), legislation that relates to the funding of community improvements levied on developers for any major development and is not unique to Palace. It is used to mitigate any negative impact of the redevelopment and commits them to £700,000-£1million of community improvements.

The S106 was not signed after the original planning application was approved in 2018, meaning formal planning permission was never awarded and eventually a revised planning application was required.

However, things have moved on significantly since 2018, with an agreement over the Sainsbury’s land and Wooderson Close. The club had prioritised the redevelopment of the academy, which has been funded and is near completion, now leaving them free to pursue the stadium project. With everything in place, the signing of the S106 is likely to be imminent.

Information obtained by The Athletic under the Freedom of Information Act shows the club did not have contact with Croydon Council between February 2022 and the autumn of that year, after which they enquired about signing the S106.

At this stage, the purchase of the Wooderson Close homes has yet to formally begin, but with residents having moved out, that should follow in due course.

Palace have begun their search for a main contractor, having put other contracts out for tender. Exploratory work commenced this year in the car park at Selhurst to establish the ground conditions and prepare for the laying of the foundations for the new stand, with holes drilled down to 35 metres.

Since the redevelopment was proposed in 2017, with a budget of around £100million, costs have risen sharply and the expectation is that the project will now cost closer to £150million, a 50 per cent increase, primarily due to inflation. The intention is to fund these costs through loans from Palace’s shareholders.

Adding to the overall cost was the multi-million-pound deal agreed with Sainsbury’s, reached last year, to purchase a small piece of land in the supermarket’s car park. In 2010, the CPFC2010 consortium, led by Parish, paid £4million for the stadium, when the stadium and, separately, the club were bought out of administration.

Reaching an agreement with Sainsbury’s over that land was a requirement for any stadium redevelopment. This had long been a point of contention and the agreement was the product of lengthy negotiations.

Sainsbury’s raised no objections in principle to the redevelopment plans but highlighted several concerns, including that they had “not been sufficiently engaged on the application” and that plans failed “to create a safe and secure environment for our colleagues and customers”.

Palace spent more than £1million getting the development to the planning stage and responded positively to prompts from the council after the process stalled. They submitted an amended planning application last year due to changes in the London Plan (which covers the development of London) and that was approved by the council’s planning committee in October 2022.

A final decision was sought from the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who had the right to intervene. In August, his office opted not to, meaning Croydon Council is free to determine the outcome of the application.

Palace have donated £250,000 to a regeneration group that will distribute it to projects within the local area, but there was no agreement with the council over the funding of a dedicated regeneration officer who would have acted as a single point of contact between the club and council.

The club and the council’s housing director appointed an independent director last summer to work with the residents and smooth relations, which had been tense. A briefing note provided for the leader of the council in February 2022 stated that “to date, the club’s attitude to communication and engagement with these tenants has been poor and regular meetings will be required if the project is to progress”.

That has been rectified. Palace are providing funding for the refurbishment of replacement properties to a high specification and residents are happy with how the club have behaved since the renewed planning application was submitted.

Slightly revised designs by architect firm KSS, which was responsible for designing Brighton & Hove Albion’s stadium and Liverpool’s redevelopment of Anfield, among other major football projects, briefly appeared on the company’s site before being removed, although not before they were posted on social media. These plans have been presented to the club.

A move to Crystal Palace Park to build a new stadium was first considered in 2011 and it was briefly revisited as a possible alternative while discussions were ongoing with the council in 2021, but it was dismissed in favour of redeveloping Selhurst Park.

Work is expected to take between 27 and 30 months. Discussions would need to be held with the Premier League (or EFL should Palace be relegated before completion) to ensure Palace play the closing games of the the 2026-27 season and opening games of the 2027-28 season away from home to allow for contingencies. Liverpool and West Ham United have had similar requests accepted by the Premier League in recent seasons.

Palace are permitted to build up to the first-floor level of the new stand, but any further work is contingent on the replacement housing, equivalent to the homes demolished in Wooderson Close, being completed.

Once the Wooderson Close homes have been formally acquired, assuming the project is not called in, and once the S106 agreement has been signed, Palace will be free of regulatory obstacles preventing them from beginning a project for which they initially secured planning permission in April 2018 and that is considered crucial to their future.

Did you know? 98.0000001% of people are morons.

Thanks

Red and Blue Army!

Thanks for the detailed update - very interesting.
Loans from the shareholders might be an issue, although the original 2 Americans have allegedly contributed with their ring fenced money.
Feeling a little brighter overall.

I full expect every denier and pessimist who said it would never happen to line up on their site of choice and admit they were totally wrong when the workmen turn up next year.

The Whitehorse will surely need increasing, but it's all about available funds.

Good point

Don't want to spend 150m on a ground that we could grow out of (all being well) in another 10 years!

Would be interesting to understand more about the funding. E.g. is that 20/30m extra a year going to give us more working capital. Or will spend the first 5/6 years paying back the debt?