Wrexham Council’s Highways department has effectively told Wrexham AFC that the latest parking evidence submitted in support of the proposed new Kop Stand capacity increase at the SToK Cae Ras stadium is “not robust enough to approve”, and has asked for the work to be done again, says Wrexham.com.
The Championship football club, owned by actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac, had previously been told that it was required to “…provide further detail and car parking assessments’, and a residents petition had been created.
Now a formal memorandum from the council’s Highways department about the application to planners over the decision to allow the additional seating to be installed to take the new Kop stand capacity to 7,750 has been made public.
The sticking point is what the council calls a “fundamental flaw”. The club’s parking survey was measured against a stadium holding around 10,000 supporters, the size of the stadium (previously known as the Racecourse) when the data was first gathered. But planning permission already exists for a 5,500-seat Kop, granted back in November 2022 and currently under construction.
However, the addition of 2,250 extra seats will mean that the ground could end up holding up to 17,250 people on a matchday, roughly 72% more than the figure the survey is based on.
Highways officials have said that it is not possible to judge the impact of the new capacity without first factoring in the seats that have already been signed off.
The council believes that the full scheme would put around 535 extra cars on the road on a matchday. There are, on paper, around 1,330 empty city centre parking spaces at peak time. But once the club’s own assumptions about how many fans drive and how many share a car are applied, the combined Kop schemes would generate roughly 1,841 vehicles, over 500 more cars than spaces, and the council’s view is that the overflow has to go somewhere, most likely onto residential streets near the stadium.
The council confirm they have reviewed the “Post Application Transport Response” that attempted to address concerns raised around the on‑street and off‑street parking impacts arising from the proposed increase in stadium capacity.
However, Highways state that “concerns remain regarding the acceptability of the parking impacts, in particular the effects of on‑street parking within residential areas close to the stadium”.
The parking survey methodology appears acceptable but the timing of the collection is pointed out to have taken place at a 3pm kick off ‘undertaken at a time when the operational capacity of the stadium was approximately 10,000 spectators. The baseline data therefore reflects historic operating conditions associated with this capacity.”
(Picture: Rob Atherton)
