Plans to redevelop Welling United’s stadium and build more than a hundred flats have been submitted to Bexley Council – but the club that shares the ground insists it won’t be leaving.
The non-league side wants to demolish most of the ground at Park View Road, which has hosted football since the 1920s, and rebuild the stadium with 104 flats in an eight-storey block facing the main road. An adjacent building used by the GMB union would also go.
Only one part of the old ground would remain, a 20-year-old stand leased to another non-league side, Erith & Belvedere. The application states that the Deres have agreed to move out, but the club, who play two leagues below Welling, has said it is staying put.
“Erith & Belvedere FC will unequivocally be playing the entirety of the 2024/25 season at Park View Road, and our commitment extends well into the future,” the side’s co-chair Paul Springett said on the Deres’ website.
Plans to redevelop Park View Road were revealed in July last year, when the club and Lita Homes, a Charlton-based developer, revealed plans to build 114 flats there.
After a public consultation, that has been revised down to 104 flats, with a small terrace and disabled seating separating the residential block from the pitch. The new ground would have a 4,000 capacity, the same as the current ground, which the application calls “a semi-derelict facility, which is not fit for its current purpose”.
Welling currently play in the National League South, the sixth tier of English football, although this season they are fighting against relegation to the Isthmian League Premier Division. The Wings have played at Park View Road — the freehold to which is owned by Bexley Council – since 1977.
Erith & Belvedere play in the tier below that, the Isthmian League South East Division. The Deres used to play at the similarly-named Park View ground in Belvedere, but a fire destroyed the main stand there in 1997 and the club moved in with Welling two years later.
Muhammad Shahid, from Lita Homes, said that he had seen the statement on the Erith & Belvedere website saying that the club wanted to stay at Park View Road but added: “I can’t really comment. I’ll be meeting them in the next few weeks but I can’t really comment at the moment.”
Last year Welling said they would be playing away from Park View Road next season, but Shahid said: “It all depends on the planning application. If we get planning consent then they’ll have to obviously vacate while the works happen.”
Welling United have not responded to a request for comment.
The new facility would be a community hub with a 3G all-weather pitch and hosting more than 40 different teams, the application says.
The current ground “represents a missed opportunity to foster a sense of belonging to a larger football community within Welling and Bexley”, the application says.
Planning documents indicate that the residential block is inspired by mansion blocks and the 1920s main stand at Rangers’ Ibrox stadium in Glasgow, with a red-brick exterior and the club name emblazoned on the front.
Most of the Park View Road site is designated as metropolitan open land – a stipulation designed to protect the land from development, a big hurdle for the development to overcome.
Another organisation, GB10 Sports, is preparing to apply to Greenwich Council for permission to turn a long-disused sports ground off Footscray Road, New Eltham, into a base for Welling United’s academy.
GB10’s plans, which were revealed to locals before Christmas, include two full-size football pitches, including one with stands for spectators, five smaller pitches and padel courts.
The site is next to Footscray Rugby Club and Charlton Athletic’s training ground. It is just a few hundred metres from the Butterfly Lane sports ground where Welling United was founded by Syd Hobbins, a former Charlton and Millwall goalkeeper, as a boys’ team in 1963.
All the planning documents for Park View Road can be found on the Bexley Council website. The Greenwich Wire has put the design and access statement, which contains the main details, into one document.
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