{"id":154411,"date":"2025-09-19T13:14:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T13:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/154411\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T13:14:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T13:14:15","slug":"river-lea-re-routed-around-new-luton-town-football-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/154411\/","title":{"rendered":"River Lea re-routed around new Luton Town football stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758159731_861_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-86c96223-0 iMuqLZ hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/86f890b0-954e-11f0-8abb-c57c54889484.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"Luton Town Football Club A supervisor stands on a building site with his back to us, pointing down towards the river, which is more like a large puddle. A crumbling wall next to the river looks like it is being pulled down. The man wears a hard hat and high vis vest that says Capital Sky Ltd \/ Supervisor. In the distance are flats and a multi-storey car park.\" class=\"sc-86c96223-0 fHZDyi\"\/>Luton Town Football Club<\/p>\n<p>Redirecting the river is a key stage in preparing the Power Court site for the new football stadium<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The River Lea has been re-routed to make way for the new Luton Town football stadium, which is due to open in 2028.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">It was previously culverted underground and was flowing through what will become the football pitch at Power Court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">More than 300m (984ft) of concrete tunnel has been installed to redirect it and the club is planning to create a riverside leisure area for supporters and residents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Michael Moran, chief operating officer at 2020 Developments, said: &#8220;Many years of planning and work with the Environment Agency have gone in to get to this point.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve done a tonne of ground investigations, all these engineering works, and now the water is flowing down this new route.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758159731_861_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-86c96223-0 iMuqLZ hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/c7536f40-9558-11f0-b830-3f3c6ed9c9f6.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Luton Town Football Club A section of the River Lea which runs between two walls, one high and one low. The walls are made of dark grey bricks, with a white concrete block on top. The water is very low level and murky. It then runs into a tunnel.\" class=\"sc-86c96223-0 fHZDyi\"\/>Luton Town Football Club<\/p>\n<p>The Power Court site was home to a power station until 1969 and the river serviced its cooling towers<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The River Lea rises in the Leagrave area of Luton and passes through Hertfordshire before joining the Thames in London.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">In 2023, Luton Borough Council opened up a section of the river in the town centre as part of <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cw4p2n12rzjo\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 jZoZnB\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the Hat Gardens park<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Shortly after the Hat Gardens, the river flows into Power Court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">On Thursday, the original route was blocked off and sandbags lifted to release the water into its new channel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve effectively stopped the old river, and water is now flowing through the new channel around the edge of the site,&#8221; said Mr Moran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;The site has got a huge industrial past, so the work to date has been the hard yards in the ground, but it&#8217;s nice to see a nicer touch to it with the new river route opened up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758159731_861_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-86c96223-0 iMuqLZ hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/9d5e0e20-954e-11f0-8abb-c57c54889484.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Luton Town Football Club A river flows through a concrete tunnel and on a concrete base, with banks of soil either side. There are trees in the background.\" class=\"sc-86c96223-0 fHZDyi\"\/>Luton Town Football Club<\/p>\n<p>The club plans to open a riverside leisure area for the public and supporters to enjoy<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Mr Moran said the river was one of the &#8220;key impediments&#8221; to the building project, as well as a large UK Power Network sub-station.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;By diverting the river, we can then remove the shell of the sub-station, and that happens next week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;Cables have gone and it&#8217;s all ready to go, then we&#8217;ve got a flat site to start piling later this year.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luton Town Football Club Redirecting the river is a key stage in preparing the Power Court site for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-154411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}