Peterborough Speedway

[Crump99]

It’s been fairly quiet on the Peterborough Speedway front for some time, but the issue has suddenly come back into focus this week because the Proposed Submission version of Peterborough’s new Local Plan removes the previous site-specific safeguards relating to Peterborough Speedway and the wider leisure use of the East of England Showground.

Peterborough City Council has held both an Extraordinary Full Council meeting and a Cabinet meeting this week, with strong representation for the Panthers at both. The debate has centred on whether the new Policy LP54 gives sufficient protection to the existing sporting and leisure use, and whether the national planning policy tests on loss and replacement have been properly addressed.

Below is a summary of the main Speedway and Showground points from both meetings

[Crump99]

Extraordinary Meeting, Council - Tuesday 29th September, 2026 6.00 pm

Having now gone through the 29 September Full Council transcript, I think the debate actually strengthens the case that the Speedway/Showground amendment was much more modest than some councillors suggested. Which makes it even more disappointing that they rejected it (Cllr Antunes proposal to reinstate site safeguards).

Although perhaps not too surprising, because it's fair to say that Peterborough City Council has been unsupportive since the existing Local Plan was adopted in 2019, and particularly since the redevelopment applications were submitted in 2023. If you compare the city's approach with pro-Speedway Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, the contrast is obvious:

BCP’s Overview and Scrutiny Board specifically recommended strengthening the Local Plan so that the Poole Stadium site would be retained for community/leisure use “including its existing function as a stadium.” The council leader then confirmed that the leisure use included speedway.



Roger Antunes was very clear that he was not asking the council to buy land, build a stadium, choose a replacement site or stop the housing allocation. His amendment was about policy: retain safeguards requiring the Showground and Speedway to be shown as genuinely surplus, or secure equivalent/better replacement provision before permanent loss. More importantly, he was not asking for the Local Plan to be stopped or held up until the East of England Showground situation was resolved. The timetable is clearly the council's priority, and I'm not convinced that all of the councillors in attendance fully grasped that distinction.

In his summing-up he put it even more simply. He was asking for the opportunity to assess viability and examine alternative sites in the Local Plan, in broadly the same way councillors were demanding proper alternative provision over Drysides (an employment site).

Despite that, the amendment was defeated by 24 votes to 10, with six abstentions. Bear in mind that PCC has 60 councillors.

Some of the arguments against Roger's proposal were revealing. Steve Allen said that finding a new Speedway site was for the promoter and was not the business of Peterborough City Council or the Local Plan. That rather misses the point. Nobody was asking PCC to run Speedway. The issue was whether planning policy should continue to protect an established sporting/leisure use from permanent loss without proper replacement provision.

Wayne Fitzgerald’s contribution was even more curious. On Drysides he argued strongly that land should not simply be removed from the plan without alternative provision being identified. Yet when he turned to the Showground he said, in effect, “that ship sailed” and Speedway should go and speak to the landowner. It is difficult not to see the inconsistency. The principle he wanted applied to Drysides was precisely the sort of principle Roger was trying to retain for the Showground and Speedway.

The other recurring objection was that Roger’s proposal had come too late. Christian Hogg said it should have been brought forward a year or two earlier, and Kevin Tighe said he liked Speedway but felt the process was now too advanced.

That raises an obvious question. The redevelopment of the Showground and the threat to Speedway had been known about for years, and the existing Local Plan already contained safeguards. Forever Panthers did not create that delay. So if councillors now say the issue is “too late”, who was responsible for dealing with it during the years when the problem was already known?

My reading of the meeting is therefore not that the safeguarding argument was disproved. It was that most councillors either regarded the issue as already lost, treated Speedway as somebody else’s commercial problem, or were unwilling to alter the Local Plan this late in the process.

That is rather different from demonstrating that the case for replacement and continued protection was wrong.

Edited 18 hours ago by Crump99

[Crump99]

Peterborough Local Plan – Speedway and Showground points from the 1 October Cabinet meeting Having now gone through the relevant parts of the Cabinet meeting transcript, I think the Speedway and East of England Showground issue came out of it in a stronger position than it may have appeared for anyone watching live. Forever Panthers’ Brian Connolly and Mick Bratley both spoke directly to Cabinet, with their arguments centred on Policy LP54 and the protections that should apply before established sports and recreation facilities are permanently lost. Brian Connolly’s point was a simple but important one. He referred to paragraph 104 of the National Planning Policy Framework and argued that existing sports and recreational buildings and land should not be built on unless one of the required tests is satisfied — for example, that the facilities are shown to be surplus to requirements or that equivalent or better replacement provision is secured. He told Cabinet that Forever Panthers had searched the council’s published evidence base and could not find any assessment meeting those tests. He also highlighted what appears to be a contradiction within the emerging Local Plan itself. The Plan recognises national protections for sports and recreation facilities elsewhere, yet LP54 merely requires “significant commercial and leisure facilities” to mitigate the loss of the former Showground. His argument was that **mitigation is not the same thing as equivalent or better replacement**, and that referring to the “former” Showground effectively assumes the loss before the relevant test has been properly answered. His request was not to stop or delay the Local Plan. It was simply to add a requirement to LP54 for a facilities retention and replacement strategy. The interesting part came when Connolly asked why the Showground-specific policy had not been given wording which reflected the national-policy protections and the safeguards in the existing Local Plan. Council leader Shabina Qayyum described that as a **“valid question”** and committed officers to providing a written response. That written reply could be important because PCC will now need to explain why the site-specific wording differs from the protections Forever Panthers says should apply. Mick Bratley approached the issue from a slightly different direction. He challenged the idea that the Showground simply ceased to be viable, pointing to the Society’s published trading figures and saying: **“This is not a business that failed. It stopped.”** He then returned to the same evidence issue — no published surplus-to-requirements assessment and no assessment of what an equivalent or better replacement would require. Bratley also made a very useful connection with another item on the Cabinet agenda — Peterborough’s visitor economy. His point was that a working Showground and Speedway track were themselves part of the visitor economy, bringing people into Peterborough many times each season for more than 50 years. As he put it, it is a strange position to plan for growing the visitor economy while deleting established facilities which already brought visitors into the city. Again, the request was deliberately modest. Forever Panthers were not asking PCC to remove the housing allocation, select a replacement site, spend money or delay the Plan. Bratley asked for one sentence in LP54 requiring the facilities not to be lost unless equivalent or better replacement provision was secured in a comparably accessible location. Councillor Roger Antunes then took the argument further. Speaking with the support of Peterborough Panthers, he referred back to the scrutiny recommendation that members and officers should work collaboratively and use all reasonable endeavours to save the Showground and Speedway facilities. He asked Cabinet to endorse that recommendation and translate it into effective policy and practical officer support. His comparison with Drysides was particularly relevant. PCC had been prepared to devote resources to resolving the consequences of removing employment land from the Local Plan, and Antunes argued that longstanding Showground and Speedway provision should merit the same level of attention. He asked for a fair and reasonable platform rather than special treatment. Cabinet did not agree to change LP54 before Regulation 19, largely on the basis of timing. Qayyum repeatedly said the representations had come late in the process and encouraged Forever Panthers and Speedway supporters to put the arguments into the Regulation 19 consultation, where they would be considered by an independent Planning Inspector. That is not the outcome Forever Panthers wanted, but it is important to look at what PCC actually said in response. PCC Council leader Shabina Qayyum repeatedly made clear that the Speedway case was **not being dismissed**. She acknowledged the importance of the Showground, recognised the value of a significant sporting facility to the city and promised to take certain questions back to officers. She also signposted Forever Panthers very clearly toward the independent examination process. The most interesting technical exchange came later when councillors asked officers whether LP54 and LP22 provided sufficient protection. Officers said LP54 means that some or all of the existing leisure and sports facilities may be lost, but that they must be replaced **“in some form”**, although not necessarily like-for-like. They also stressed that the word “significant” means developers cannot simply replace the Showground with a token leisure facility. That sounds reassuring on the surface, but it also seems to expose the central difference between PCC and Forever Panthers very clearly. PCC’s position appears to be that the loss can be mitigated by significant alternative leisure provision which is not necessarily equivalent to what exists. Forever Panthers’ position is that national planning policy requires the loss of an established sporting facility to pass a stricter test, including equivalent or better replacement unless another specified test is satisfied. That distinction is now clearly on the public record and is exactly the sort of issue which can be tested at examination. There was also an exchange over what would happen if the new Local Plan failed to progress. Qayyum suggested that reverting to the 2019 Local Plan could place Speedway in even greater jeopardy because speculative applications could come forward. Officers confirmed that any such applications would then have to be decided under the **2019 Local Plan**. What that exchange did not address is the obvious point that the 2019 Local Plan also contains the very safeguards which Forever Panthers says have been weakened or lost in the new LP54. That is another issue which may merit closer attention during Regulation 19. So the immediate result is clear enough. PCC approved the Plan for Regulation 19 and LP54 was not changed. However, the meeting was far from pointless. Forever Panthers succeeded in putting the core planning issue formally before Cabinet. The council leader acknowledged that a key question required a written officer response. Antunes pushed the case from sympathy into practical policy and resource questions. Officers publicly explained how they interpret LP54. And PCC repeatedly directed the dispute toward the independent Planning Inspector. In other words, the argument has now moved beyond simply saying that Peterborough Speedway should be saved because supporters want it back. The issue is increasingly being framed around **planning policy, evidence, replacement provision, the treatment of established leisure facilities and whether LP54 properly reflects national policy**. That is a much stronger battleground for Regulation 19 than the one Speedway supporters were facing only a short time ago. AI assisted summary. I have read through, but double check anything that confuses you.

[Crump99]

sorry, wrong thread. If someone can move it to a more appropriate place, that'd be good!

[YeOldPitGate]

I did see an article on this and the council speaker seemed to be saying we wish all the issues with the speedway had been highlighted earlier which obviously Mick and Co have been doing for months/years so i'm assuming she was talking b/s ?

[arnieg]

26 minutes ago, YeOldPitGate said:

I did see an article on this and the council speaker seemed to be saying we wish all the issues with the speedway had been highlighted earlier which obviously Mick and Co have been doing for months/years so i'm assuming she was talking b/s ?

I do wish people would stop running down the people whose support we need. I suspect the speaker in question was referring to the period prior to closure when Mr Chapman was noticeably quiet.

[Rickyag]

Chapman lost a lot of support when he went onto the microphone at Peterborough and told the fans not to protest about the closure

The reason is because Buster Chapman and Dale Allitt supported the closure, I can only presume they thought a good number of Peterborough fans would go to watch his beloved Kings Lynn. 

[Crump99]

46 minutes ago, Rickyag said:

Chapman lost a lot of support when he went onto the microphone at Peterborough and told the fans not to protest about the closure

The reason is because Buster Chapman and Dale Allitt supported the closure, I can only presume they thought a good number of Peterborough fans would go to watch his beloved Kings Lynn. 

That was the last time I attended the EoES. That was a terrible speech by Chapman. The only saving grace is that he still had to work with the Showground administration, so that speech and his save speedway inaction throughout 2023 could possibly be explained to some extent. But given his total lack of interest since Oct 23, I’m less tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt!

[Crump99]

2 hours ago, YeOldPitGate said:

I did see an article on this and the council speaker seemed to be saying we wish all the issues with the speedway had been highlighted earlier which obviously Mick and Co have been doing for months/years so i'm assuming she was talking b/s ?

The Panthers side was in a much weaker position because there was no equivalent organised resistance early enough. Whatever the former owner knew or was told, the public-facing position in 2023 was remarkably passive. There was no serious challenge to the emerging narrative, no visible attempt to build a planning case, and no supporter organisation forcing awkward questions while the important assumptions were becoming embedded. By the time the Panthers campaign began trying to unpick it all in 2024, they were already starting from behind.

They also had every reason to expect Peterborough City Council to uphold the site-specific safeguards in its own adopted Local Plan for the East of England Showground’s leisure uses and Peterborough Speedway. So if the suggestion now is that these issues should have been raised earlier, the councillor probably needs to read up on what has actually happened over the last few years.

[YeOldPitGate]

4 hours ago, arnieg said:

I do wish people would stop running down the people whose support we need. I suspect the speaker in question was referring to the period prior to closure when Mr Chapman was noticeably quiet.

My point is this has been going on for nigh on three years now and given the media exposure over that time and work done by Mick & co I find it a stretch for the council to hint that "we didn't realise anyone was fussed about saving the stadium"