New Newcastle United stadium: The stunning redevelopment site within walking distance of St James' Park

Newcastle United are looking at options to expand St James' Park and build an all-new stadium amid unprecedented demand for tickets.

St James’ Park and the adjacent Leazes Park in the foreground.

For just about every Newcastle United fan, a new stadium outside of the city centre is unthinkable.

We do not yet know the club’s thinking on the future of St James’ Park, the team’s iconic home.

With the stadium having been sold out since a takeover in late 2021, the club have been exploring expansion and relocation options for some time, and proposals for an expanded St James’ Park and a new stadium will be put to fans in the coming months.

Brad Miller, the club’s chief operating officer, highlighted the commercial benefits of an all-new stadium at a supporter event at St James’ Stack on Strawberry Place late last year. The club must bring in more money if it is to invest more in players while staying within the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules.

“The first choice is, if we stayed at St James’, we have the 52,000 seats already,” said Miller. “It comes with significantly more money if we transform it, and it will look amazing. That’s option one.

“Option two is if we were to move away, and not too far away as we aren’t going to stretch the elastic band to the point of breaking. The second option, we are looking at it seriously as it does have the potential to earn more than twice as much in terms of revenue, compared to a transformation of St James’ Park. And more seats, a lot more seats potentially.”

St James’ Park’s location is perfect, but there is one sizeable problem – it is no longer big enough.

The Gallowgate End could be extended to raise St James’ Park’s capacity to more than 60,000 seats.

Expansion plan

Former owner Mike Ashley shelved ambitious plans for an expanded Gallowgate End, which would have increased the stadium’s capacity to around 60,000, which were drawn up during the late Freddy Shepherd’s time as chairman. Ashley went on to sell club-owned Strawberry Place to developers, a move which seemingly ended any hope of enlarging the ground.

The club’s new owners bought back that land with a view to future expansion of that end of the ground, but things have moved on since then. A new stadium seems to be the favoured option given the unprecedented demand for tickets and the potential to exponentially increase commercial revenues.

Thousands of members of The Mags and Junior Mags are left disappointed each and every ticket ballot, and locked-out fans are impatient for news of the club’s stadium plans. The demand for tickets from fans at home and abroad will only grow if the team continues to progress on the pitch.

So the hierarchy will soon have to make arguably the biggest decision in the club’s history.

“It is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” said Miller. “Do we invest and transform St James’ as we see it today on the site where we are? Or do we take that bold move and think about moving?”

A show of hands at the Stack suggested that a majority of fans attending the event favoured the “bolder” move, an all-new stadium on a city centre site.

A much bigger stadium, possibly accommodating 70,000 or more fans, would help the club compete on the pitch given the revenues it would bring in.

But where?

New stadium site

The obvious option is a new ground next to St James’ Park on Leazes Park, assuming the Town Moor, described as the city’s “green lung” during protests over plans for a brand-new 70,000-seater stadium there which were drawn up the 1990s, is off limits.

However, any proposal to build on Leazes Park would face planning challenges.

The city has also a brownfield site within walking distance of St James’ Park, a host stadium for Euro 2028, which is ripe for development.