East Midlands mayor says regional transport funding could help Nottingham Forest expansion

Ward told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that "a bridge might be one of the options, but it has not been determined". She said she could not rule out another vehicular crossing to ease congestion on the A614 and A6097, where roadworks costing nearly £50m are under way. The East Midlands Combined County Authority has around £2bn in government transport funding for Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Authority documents place the City Ground in a proposed Trent Sports District with Trent Bridge Cricket Ground and the National Watersports Centre. Ward said any EMCCA funding would be overseen by its transport committee and would need a business case.

Rushcliffe Borough Council's planning committee granted full planning permission on 16 September 2026, subject to conditions, to demolish and replace the Peter Taylor Stand and redevelop the Trent End. The BBC reported that stage would take the City Ground to 45,000 seats, and that outline permission for the Brian Clough Stand would add 7,500 seats for a total of 52,500. The current capacity is about 31,000. The BBC put the estimated cost of the full two-stage scheme at £790m. Nottingham Post put stage one at 45,500 seats; adding the 7,500 second stage to that figure would give 53,000.

The Trent Bridge condition

The approval left one major transport issue unresolved. The planning report says "the pedestrian capacity of Trent Bridge is the principal constraint on the development". Forest proposed permanently closing two of the bridge's six traffic lanes to make room for walking crowds. Nottinghamshire County Council and Nottingham City Council rejected the idea, though both say they otherwise support the development. Demolition cannot begin until a matchday crowd-flow plan is agreed, and that plan could involve a new pedestrian and cycle bridge. Any such bridge would need its own planning application and is not covered by Forest's developer contributions.

AOL reported the expansion could bring up to 21,300 more people to the area on matchdays, a 68% increase. Nottingham Post live coverage put the additional crowd at about 20,000. Forest has agreed to pay about £4.17m in developer contributions for the wider community, including £1.75m towards bus services, £990,000 towards a controlled parking zone, £424,900 towards walking and cycling and £386,397 towards park and ride sites. The proposed zone would ban parking within a 25-minute walk of the ground for four hours either side of kick-off, except for residents and businesses.

Who pays

A further crossing would cost millions, the Nottingham Post reported, and would be considerably more expensive than closing lanes on the existing bridge. The two councils have suggested a new crossing could be built alongside the Waterside Bridge near Lady Bay, which opened in June. Ward has not committed to funding a bridge. She described the expansion as "the catalyst for what we could do across the Trent sports district". The club has not said how it will meet the crowd-flow condition.