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

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.

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.

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.