Project
St George’s Park
The Football Association
Following Lichfields’ successful work on Wembley Stadium, The Football Association invited us to provide town planning advice to create their national football centre for training and coaching on the land in the Staffordshire countryside, near Burton on Trent. Working as a core member of the FA team, led by David Sheepshanks, Lichfields had several roles on the project. We prepared an Environmental Statement, including a thorough landscape/visual impact analysis, a study to show the economic benefits, a ‘touring’ public exhibition and the Planning Statement and managed negotiations with the Local Planning Authority.
The centre was officially opened as St George’s Park in 2012. The world class facilities include a full size indoor 3G pitch, state of the art training facilities, health/rehabilitation centre, 228 hotel rooms and numerous offices and training rooms. The grounds accommodate 13 outdoor pitches, one of which is the same size and orientation as the Wembley pitch.
We built on our relationship with The FA, established by our work on Wembley Stadium, to help them achieve their aspiration to create a world class training facility. The project involved telephone discussions and local consultation to explain how the submitted development would be associated with the countryside location and create local economic benefits.
Nick Thompson, Senior Director, Lichfields