What the plight of a local football club can tell us about the strength of a community

Luton has been hit hard by austerity and nowhere encapsulates its underinvestment like Kenilworth Road, its battered old football ground

Who decides the future of our towns and cities, when developers and politicians fight over small scraps of land? And what does it mean for our football clubs? How can they make sure they have the room that they need to play?

These questions have driven much of my reporting for The Independent for the past few years. Because they are some of the most important questions about the future of our national game. Go into any town or city in Britain and there will have been a recent debate about the location, development and cost of its football ground.

My local team is Dulwich Hamlet in the National League South, and I have reported at length on the planning battle between the private equity fund that wanted to develop their ground, and Southwark Council’s bid to stop it. That fight saw Dulwich locked out of their ground for months and only recently has a truce between the developers and the council seen them let back in. That might sound niche but it is a story repeated all over the country.

Last week I reported on the case of Luton Town. They should be a big team, playing in a big town not far from London. But Luton has been hit hard by austerity and nowhere encapsulates its underinvestment like Kenilworth Road, its battered old football ground. Luton want to build a new ground, but to do that they need to build a new out-of-town retail development to raise the money. And that has not gone down well with the owners of Luton’s only shopping mall, who are trying to block it.

I was nearly taken aback by the strength of the feeling on this issue. Lutonians are unanimous in their support of the scheme and desperate for it to succeed. So is Gavin Shuker, the Luton South MP, who has campaigned hard for the redevelopment.

Capital & Regional, the company trying to block the scheme, had its own arguments, but the political will of the town is against the firm. The story was well received too, Luton fans pleased to see their own story picked up in the national media. But this is a universal story, playing out all over the country.

Yours,

Jack Pitt-Brooke
Football reporter