Town have applied to Ipswich Borough Council for retrospective planning permission for some of the work which took place at Portman Road last summer.


Following promotion to the Premier League, the Blues were required to bring the stadium up to the standard required during the close season, no mean feat given that the club had been out of the top flight for 22 years and with the criteria having advanced significantly in that time.

“The sooner than hoped for return to the Premier League presented new challenges. Every year the Premier League publishes a new ‘Handbook’. Within which is covered everything you need to know about the upcoming Premier League season,” the design and access statement reads.

“From the list of participants, to their facilities and history, to the rules of the game. The handbook covers all aspect of the League’s requirements.

“Of interest here is the section Rule K which is a 50-60-page section covering some 185 rules, each relating to facilities and operational arrangements that the clubs must provide to satisfy the league and their partners.

“Many of the rules are broadcast related, such as cameras positions, interview spaces, broadcast facilities, media suites etc. Many others cater for the spaces required by players and officials.

“Crucially over the last 20 years there has been an enormous change to the requirements of a modern Premier League football club.”

It continues: “Not all of the projects undertaken during the summer of 2024 require planning approval, some 110 individual projects were undertaken during the close season, which was a phenomenal effort by all involved.

“This application covers the projects that require planning approval only, where either additional floor space was required or a change of appearance/fenestration requires that the Local Planning Authority be properly consulted.”

The projects which are subject to the retrospective planning application are the new broadcast studio, new and upgraded floodlighting, the partial demolition and alteration of existing theCobbold Stand ticket office to provide dedicated wheelchair access for visiting spectators, new dedicated male and female officials changing and amenity space, major alterations to the players’ tunnel allowing and new hospitality access and arrival space within the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand.

The application adds: “The proposals submitted represent ITFC’s recent endeavours to bring the stadium and its facilities in line with the requirements as set out by English Premier League following the club’s promotion.

“The proposals were all designed in context with the existing stadium and the have been considered alongside recent and future aspirations for the stadium to form cohesive and progressive solutions.

“Overall, the image presented by the club’s stadium both from within the stadium bowl and from the public realm outside is increasingly positive, progressive and exciting to fans new and old, as well members public less interested in football but buoyed in the positive contribution the club is making to the town.

“Ipswich Borough Council has been incredible supportive of the club, we respectively ask for your continued support.”

Photo: REUTERS/Tony O Brien

churchmans81 added 18:51 - Apr 16 Seems like it’s a quiet news day.
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poet added 21:28 - Apr 16 Interesting isn’t it, that the Premier League go to great lengths to make sure that every club knows the rules. However, when it comes to their FFP rules, they seem very inept at upholding them.
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blues1 added 09:36 - Apr 17 Poet. How have they been inept at upholding the psr rules? Any club that's been found guilty has been punished. Also, it's not the pl that investigate the breaches in the rules anyway. Thats done by an independent board. Presumably ur referring to thd man city cases. Well, they've not been found guilty ywt
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blues1 added 09:38 - Apr 17 Poet. Yet. And yes, it's taking a long time. Bit that's because it takes a lot longer to investigate thst number of offences. Plus, most of those charges aren't anything to do with the psr.
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JewellintheTown added 13:14 - Apr 17 Can you imagine if we had to wait until we'd scoped and proposed all those permissions & waited for approval before we could do any of it? We'd probably still be waiting now & years to come because of all the bureaucracy involved in something like that. Ask for forgiveness later was definitely the way to go.
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Bert added 13:23 - Apr 17 My understanding is that IBC and ITFC have a good understanding that promotion to the PL came with a tough timeframe that required some latitude. IBC would know that sticking rigidly to the application process would have been embarrassing. Councils get unfairly slated for lots of things but most do their best, imo, to find solutions.
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RobsonWark added 16:37 - Apr 17 @Blues1 - Man City had 115 charges against them for breaking the PSR rules. If they don't get relegated then what's the point of making rules? Let's just have a free for all shall we? Let's just let any investor buy a cub and invest any amount that they want into it. I know, Why don't we sell the naming rights to the SBR stand for £500 million for one season? Because no one would ever do that, but that's the type of thing that Man City have been doing because they are owned by Abu Dhabi. That club have broken so many financial rules. They should be relegated not given a points deduction so that they finish just above us.

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IpswichT62OldBoy added 17:57 - Apr 17 Man City should have the punishment Rangers had imposed, relegation to League 2.
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Tampa_Florida_Blue added 20:18 - Apr 17 @IpswichT62oldboy. I was just thinking the same thing about Rangers play by their own rules and getting demoted 3 or 4 divisions as punishment. Imagine man city play pub clubs each week which almost what Rangers was doing.
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bobble added 22:29 - Apr 17 Having money entitles you to cheat laws, thats the way the world works..
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Steve_ITFC_Sweden added 08:29 - Apr 18 Normally, I wouldn't be very happy with a business that disregarded planning permission and went ahead and did some work anyway, perhaps in the face of objections from another party. But in this case, as is mentioned above, there was probably a lot of time pressure to meet certain PL demands before the season started. More importantly, though, as far as I'm concerned, this work was only related to he stadium and had no negative impact on the surrounding environment. It's not the same as, for example, someone putting up a new wall and blocking someone else's view. So in this case, I hope the council and ITFC sort the issue out with the minimum of fuss.

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grinch added 11:24 - Apr 18 How did Luton fair wuth planning applications there ground is inept in so many ways they did not do what we did. There must also be a period you can have all this completed by we now have a premier ground playing championship football surely it should be a 3 year step change
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