Planners Recommend Green Light for New Chiswick Stadium

Councillors set to consider proposals for Hartington Road sports ground

An aerial view of the planned new complex from the application documents

December 3, 2023

Proposals to restore a stadium and make major changes to a sports ground in Chiswick have received the backing of council planners.

The Latymer Foundation’s application (P/2023/1844) for permission for the scheme at The Quintin Hogg Memorial Sports Ground on Hartington Road (W4 3AN) is due to be considered at the Hounslow Council planning meeting this Thursday (7 December).

Councillors on the committee will be given a report from the borough planning team recommending approval despite the majority of comments received on the proposals being objections.

The Latymer Foundation says that since 1990 to the present day the site has been underused and suffered from a lack of investment. The historic track was dug up to form a car park and the pitch by the stadium allowed to fall into disrepair. Latymer School has increasingly become the primary user of the site during term time as use by the University of Westminster, formerly the Polytechnic, declined.

The foundation is proposing changes to the existing grass playing fields to create flexible multi-sports games pitches, two new all-weather sports pitches, cricket nets and artificial wickets, padel courts, associated floodlighting. It is also intended to bring the stand at the Polytechnic Stadium at the middle of the site back into use including the changing rooms underneath. The 1936 Grade II Listed modernist style grandstand has more recently constructed buildings wings either side of it occupied by The Little Gym, Bright Horizons Chiswick and Roko.

Visualisation of the new stadium stand from the application

There were 28 comments received about the application of which 22 were objections on the basis of traffic, noise, potential flooding, parking issues, the cutting down of trees and scepticism about the amount of community use at the site.

The planners dismissed theses concerns and concluded, “The principle of sports use has been accepted in previous applications. The proposed development would not affect the heritage value of the Listed Building, the openness of the Metropolitan Open Land, or the appearance of
the Grove Park Conservation Area while providing a greater variety sports facilities to the community.”

CGI from the application shows the new padel courts to be introduced to the site

Although it was accepted that trees and grassland would be lost to facilitate the development it was pointed out that 105 new trees would be planted. Three sweet chestnuts on the site which are between 500 - 900 years old are subject to a Tree Preservation Order. There would be a condition to secure that the Biodiversity net gain score would meet 10%.

On concerns about flooding due to the loss of grass, the planners said that the scheme was compliant with regulations concerning drainage, a view that was endorsed by the Environment Agency.

The entrance to the Polytechnic Stadium

The application says that parking at the site is poorly managed and it intends to extend the car park as well as introducing ANPR (automated number plate recognition) and limiting free parking to registered users only. The proposal would include 262 parking spaces, reduced by 3 spaces from the existing. Of these, 21 would be Blue Badge parking bay, 14 Active Electric Vehicle bays, and 5 coach parking spaces.