Major Development at Reading FC Stadium Approved

Essential works to allow a major redevelopment at the Reading FC stadium have been approved.

Plans, a decade in the making, would turn the area around the Select Car Leasing Stadium into homes and a leisure spot, with 600 apartments, a 246-bedroom hotel, an ice rink and a convention centre.

The scheme was first submitted in 2016 and approved by Reading Borough Council in 2018, but details on the risks of working on contaminated land had to be signed off before work could start.

Those details were debated at a council planning applications committee meeting, where a report initially misnamed the developer as Reading Borough Council-a point corrected during the session.

Councillor Jan Gavin said she was pleased the report called it the Madejski Stadium. The ground was rebranded the Select Car Leasing Stadium in July 2021.

Councillor John Ennis praised the sponsors: "They have been very good for Reading FC in times of trouble, so we should respect their hard work in renaming the stadium even though it's a longer word."

Planning officer Alison Amoah confirmed the developer is RFC Prop Co Ltd. There was speculation about links to former owner Dai Yongge; Councillor Micky Leng said: "I have heard the company is still something to do with Dai Yongge, I think he's still involved in it, so you'll have to keep an eye on it."

But Cllr Gavin stressed ownership shouldn't affect planning: "For us, the ownership is no consequence, unfortunately sometimes, but that is the case, we cannot make a planning decision based on who owns the land."

Mr Leng later welcomed the scheme and noted the development, branded Royal Elm Park after the club's old West Reading ground. "I welcome this, I think the residents' focus on this will be the ice skating rink, which they keep talking about."

The committee unanimously approved changes to the gas and contaminated land conditions on September 9.

Companies House lists RFC Prop Co's secretary as John Roddison, with directors Horst Joachim Franz Geicke (a German national living in Hong Kong), Taweesuk Srisumrid and Sumrith Thanakarnjanasuth, both from Thailand.

You can view the approved application on the council planning portal using reference PL/25/0705.

James Aldridge, Local Democracy Reporter