A decision on the planning application for Dundee Football Club’s new stadium project at Camperdown Park will not go ahead next week as scheduled.
Councillors on Dundee City Council’s planning committee were due to consider the Planning Permission in Principle application (PPiP) on Monday.
Holmes Miller lodged the application in February this year on behalf of Dark Blue Property Holdings, the company set up by club owners Tim Keyes and John Nelms that will own the development.
John Nelms said at the time that the PPiP was to contain “everything you would do for a full planning application” to ensure a smooth planning permission process.
However, a statement from Dark Blue Property Holdings yesterday confirmed the item will no longer appear on Monday’s agenda.
The statement appears to link the council’s recent granting of planning permission for the city’s Eden Project to a need for further details to enable a more efficient next step in the submission of a full planning application.
This means the earliest the application can now be heard is September 9. Failing that, the matter would be revisited in November.
The statement read: “Since Dark Blue Property Holdings Ltd submitted its Planning Permission in Principle documentation to the planning department of Dundee City Council on February 8 for the Camperdown Stadium project, it has continued to work tirelessly in the background with consultants to ensure the vision can become a reality as efficiently as possible.
“Following the awarding of planning permission for the city’s Eden Project on June 20, we received feedback from the council’s planning department on June 28 on our February submission.
“Since then, we have continued to engage with consultants as well as the planning department to ensure the submission is not only compelling and compliant but enables a more efficient next step in the submission on a full planning application.
“Based on the timelines above, the August 12 committee meeting will not go ahead as scheduled. While we are all eager to bring the Camperdown Stadium Project to life, we will continue to respect the planning process in the hope that the council observes its stated objective to ‘work with developers to remove barriers’.”
Public objections against the PPiP application are understood to include concerns over the use of land earmarked for the proposed training facility.
But, following last week’s separate submission of a proposed new football training centre and community hub at Riverside Park, the club hopes any approval here would remove the need for a training ground to be built adjacent to the Camperdown Stadium.
The first major step in the construction of the new 12,500-capacity stadium took place in May when the former NCR building was demolished.
Its removal helps pave the way for the new ground and other facilities on land next to Camperdown Leisure Park.
Dark Blue Property Holdings added that it expects to shortly publish a “spectacular visual fly-through of the new stadium to whet the appetite of our fans”, alongside a new FAQs section on a new microsite within the existing club website.
