The redevelopment of Earls Court, a roughly a mile away from Stamford Bridge as the crow flies, appears to have taken a massive step forward … after many years of the site going disused and its future being (somewhat) in question. Unfortunately, though entirely as expected despite a few rumor-cycles, it’s taken that step forward without any notion or hint of a football stadium.
Hammersmith & Fulham council have approved the plans of the Earls Court Development Company (ECDC) to build a massive complex of homes, offices, hotels, and various retail and commercial properties. The ECDC’s plans never had anything to do with sports however, certainly not football, and that remains the case to this day.
Because the 44-acre site straddles two Boroughs, the ECDC still need the approval of Kensington & Chelsea, though that’s probably a formality at this point.
Last year, rumors of Chelsea trying to acquire part of that land to build a new stadium made the rounds (for about the third or fourth time in the last decade and a half), though they were predicated on the ECDC not getting planning permission (and of course also on the CPO approving a move away from Stamford Bridge for Chelsea Football Club).
Today’s news should put an end to these rumors and get us focused back on more feasible solutions — probably involving something with the current location, as unfeasible as that may also be. We either knock it down and build again, or we do it stand-by-stand. It’s going to cost an arm and a leg either way, even with a billion set aside for it already from BlueCo’s acquisition of Chelsea in 2022. Still time to resurrect the Cathedral of Football!