QPR may scrap £30m training complex, says owner Tony Fernandes

Campaigners against Queens Park Rangers’ planned £30 million training centre are celebrating after the club’s chairman said the scheme could be scrapped.

The Premier League team’s owner Tony Fernandes said the scale of local opposition to the plan to build a facility at Warren Farm in Hanwell, west London, had made him rethink his plans despite defeating a legal challenge in the High Court in March.

Mr Fernandes said he was now considering upgrading the club’s existing ramshackle training ground at Harlington instead.

He said: “We are going to move on. Imperial (College) are the land owners here [at Harlington]. We are talking to Imperial about expanding and making it bigger and better here.

“We are going to have a board meeting in a few months when we are going to decide. If I was a betting man I would say it would be here.”

He added: “The judicial reviews keep coming. The local residents keep complaining – it’s only a few but it doesn’t take many to stop something.”

Mr Fernandes’s comments were greeted with enthusiasm by the Hanwell Community Forum, which has accused Ealing council of selling off 61 acres of public space to QPR for “a mere £1.8 million to £2.25 million”.

The council said: “We are keen to see what will be a great facility for both QPR and our residents.”