Marylebone Cricket Club members critical of development plans for Lord’s that were circulated last month are "threatening to cause a delay" to the special general meeting scheduled for September, according to Ivo Tennant of the LONDON TIMES. They have written to the chair claiming that a review document "is not impartial, that more use should be made of the disused railway tunnels at the Nursery End and that it would be better to wait until the club hears from the ECB on whether it will retain two Tests each year." The requisitionists, who have already "successfully staged" one SGM over the "long-running" dispute, "believe that the club needs to look again at its own masterplan, which focuses on piecemeal development of Lord’s, and the alternative put forward by Charles Rifkind, who owns the head lease on the tunnels and wants to build apartments above them." They believe that the review document is "biased in favour of the club." The club’s updated masterplan "favours extending the capacity of the ground to 32,000." There is a "concern within the committee," however, that the prospective redevelopment at The Oval, which will take the seating to 40,000, "could result in Surrey staging two Tests a summer instead of MCC" (LONDON TIMES, 7/19).
