QPR on modern stadiums and community
Loftus Road, QPR's current ground and home since 1917, lacks space for stadium redevelopment
The football club, Queens Park Rangers, which last graced the premier league in 2015, is looking at different options to develop a new stadium at a time of extensive regeneration for west London suburbs.
At our October 10 forum in White City, London, Alan Sendorek, Head of Strategy for QPR Property will be speaking about plans to create a modern stadium, ideally within the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham to be close to its loyal and local fan base.
Alan will be joining fellow panel contributors Paul Carney (Planning Director at WYG) and Ben Heath (Principal at Grimshaw) at White City Place which was the site of the famous 80,000 seat stadium created for the 1908 summer Olympics and which QPR used as its base during two phases in its history.
The Loftus Road Stadium although much loved by many fans falls well below modern standards for what has become a much more family orientated sport. The club, where former England Manager Steve McLaren runs the first team, needs to move and develop another stadium if it is to prosper financially.
The club had bought land holdings near to the Old Oak Common HS2 station with a view to developing a completely new stadium, but negotiations with Car Giant to buy the necessary additional land floundered. At the time there was no clear City Hall support for a stadium in this important new regeneration district.
One of the best prospects for a new stadium lies in the rebuilding of the Linford Christie running track in Du Cane Road W12 to provide a new football ground and improve facilities for the local community and for schools, with a connection to Wormwood Scrubs Public Park. QPR would use income from developing its Old Oak land holdings to pay for the new stadium, and by selling Loftus Road..
Before his current role at QPR Alan was Special Adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron, working as Head of Political Press. In 2011 he co-founded a charity - the Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation - to build the first cricket stadium in Rwanda, which opened last October and acts as a hub for the community in Kigali.
