UPDATE: Hope for City Ground as Nottingham Forest and council talks planned

Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis will be contacted by the city’s council chief for crunch talks over the future of the City Ground.

The new leader of the council wants to meet the club’s owner and chairman Tom Cartledge to try and work some magic to persuade them to stay at their current home.

Neghat Khan, officially confirmed as David Mellen’s successor on Monday (May 20), says she wants to speak to the club face to face and believes they can remain at the City Ground.

What Neghat Khan has said

“I definitely believe they should stay at the City Ground and one of my actions as the new leader of the council will be reaching out to the owner and the chairman and asking for a meeting to actually really thrash it out. What seems to be the problem?

“There’s a lot of history at the City Ground. You can’t just move. You go to a new stadium, it doesn’t mean that history or that feeling, that atmosphere is there. We don’t want them to go and the Forest fans don’t want them to go.

“I’ve got to work some magic, but I think it’s doable. That’s one of my first acts as leader will be writing to the Forest chairman and the owner and asking for a meeting face to face and hopefully, at the end of it, shake hands.”

What the former leader of the council David Mellen has said

“It’s clearly not the case that Nottingham hasn’t got ambition. If you were there in the square when Nottingham Forest did get promoted from the Championship, you could see the ambition there and the welcome that the club received at the Council House as we celebrated with them.

“We hope that the club will stabilise themselves, but it’s clear from the words of the fans, and I think Mr Marinakis needs to listen to the words of the fans clearly, that they don’t want to move from Nottingham. Our doors are open for further conversations about how the City Graund can be improved and capacity increased, but the fans don’t sing Mist Rolling In From The Trent for no reason.”

What Evangelos Marinakis has said

The Greek owner wants to see the club in a 50,000 seater all-purpose stadium with state of the art training facilities and Academy set-up and his reasoning is hard to deny.

“It will change the history in years to come of the region and the team for our supporters,” he said.

“It’ll be hard to leave City Ground, but in an age when revenue streams dictate success on the pitch, there’s no doubt moving to a bigger facility will set the club on the right path.”

“Over the last 10 years, the city of Nottingham has lacked the confidence and ambition of the other big regional cities of Manchester and Birmingham,” he says.

Could the club make the current location work? Architect Matt Drewit, believes so;

A proposed redevelopment of the City Ground has prompted debate among Nottingham Forest fans as the club considers relocating to a new site.

Pops51: Looks brilliant, love it

Stevenotts01: Great idea love the initial plans

kieren: Good looking ground and add in the possibility of putting an underground car park in massively improves parking capacity and would gain extra revenue from there as well.

ford10hh: Two important points what is the estimated costs, second where will Forest play for the estimated two year build?

Jobsoworth2021: Epic. Get it built.

Redwazza: If we can stay where we are then not opposed to redeveloping site. Need to make sure some consultation happens with fans though so we get the stadium we all want.

reddogdaz: So where will they play there home games whilst this hideous change is being constructed?

Watermark: Looks awful but that’s just my opinion. What’s that roof???

GGGrumper: My main concern would relate to the increased amount of car parking space that would be needed. Also – where would all the other ‘ventures’ be sited?

Chaotic: Time to move on. Don’t be held to ransom.

RedFaced: Looks brilliant. The 21st Century and beyond.

@YouAreMyForest: Looks hideous in my humble opinion.

@Hillereal: This is very interesting…an impressive idea for staying at the City Ground site, if it’s possible, land and planning-wise…

@Neil_Bower: You couldn’t do this. It would cast a shadow over the houses.

@DianneScatterg2: Horrible

@SteveNeale70: Exactly the idea i posted earlier, so clearly others thinking the same and this looks brilliant. Need to think outside the box. Love the pontoon idea, mine I’ve got the tram going over the Trent through to holme p. There’s no need to move.

@funkstarphil: This is an idea I could get behind! Looks phenomenal at first glance, and ticks a number of boxes. Love the idea of pontoon access for boats in front of the ground, opening up potential water taxi ideas for enhanced access

@rtones: This seems like a sensible solution if it’s possible, buy the freehold, bulldoze the existing ground and build a new one on the site