The rebuilding of the Allen and Tavern Stands at Lord's Cricket Ground, a £98M ($126.8M) project that was "originally supposed to have begun last year," is to be postponed until "at least" '27, according to Ivo Tennant of the LONDON TIMES. Instead, Marylebone Cricket Club, faced with competition for major matches from other venues, is "intent on redeveloping the Compton and Edrich Stands at the Nursery End to increase the capacity of the ground by 2,000 to 31,000." Planning permission is "likely to take two years to obtain and MCC still has to decide whether to try to fund the costs of this rebuilding work out of its own resources" -- each stand will cost about £20M ($25.9M) plus professional fees -- or to accept an offer of £100M ($129.4M) from Rifkind Levy Partnership, a property group which owns the head lease on disused railway tunnels under the Nursery Ground, "in return for developing flats, a pavilion and a frontage on to Wellington Road." Planning permission on the Allen and Tavern Stands was granted by Westminster City Council in '15. The rebuilding of the Compton and Edrich Stands was advocated in the original "Vision for Lord's," which was scrapped in '11. If the capacity of Lord's is extended to 31,000, it would be 9,000 short of the figure envisaged in the "Vision" (LONDON TIMES, 5/2).
