Coronavirus: Brentford new stadium completion on hold during lockdown

Published on: 03 April 2020

Lionel Road will hold 17,250 spectators on match days

Brentford have confirmed they are unable to say when their new stadium will be fully completed because of the coronavirus lockdown.

The Bees were originally planning to leave Griffin Park for the nearby newly-built Community Stadium in July.

But construction work on the Lionel Road site has been "scaled back" in line with government guidelines.

The club say they have already sold more than 6,000 season tickets for the 2020-21 campaign in the new stadium.

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In an open letter to supporters on behalf of the Brentford board, the Championship club also confirmed that players have "agreed to defer a significant proportion of their wages" until football can safely resume.

And a number of non-playing staff have also been furloughed in line with the government's job retention scheme.

Premiership rugby union club London Irish are also due to move to Lionel Road next season as tenants after 20 years playing at Reading's Madejski Stadium.

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Most of work still to be completed involves interior fixtures and fittings. But the site also includes the construction of a number of residential and commercial buildings with more than 400 people working on it at its peak.

"The absolutely minimum and essential requirement during this period is to ensure, as far as possible, that the site is made and kept safe at all times especially in respect of hazardous unfinished electrical installations and, where feasible, other dependent critical live safety and related systems," the letter said.

"Given the evolving situation regarding the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic it is not possible at this stage to reliably forecast when the new stadium will be fully complete."

Brentford's last match at Griffin Park, their home for 116 years was due to be against Barnsley on Saturday 2 May, but all English Football League fixtures have been suspended indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Thomas Frank's side are fourth with nine games remaining as they target a play-off place.

Source: bbc.com

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