Portsmouth Football Club
In October 2007, Portsmouth F.C. announced plans to build a 36,000 seat football stadium on the south-east corner of Horsea Island, near to the M275 motorway. The proposed new stadium was planned for completion in 2011, and a formal planning application was submitted to Portsmouth City Council in January, 2009. However, owing to the economic recession, the plan was postponed indefinitely only two months later in favour of expansion of the existing ground, Fratton Park, to a capacity of 30,000.
The Horsea stadium proposal is beset by serious logistical problems, notably the paucity of access by road and rail (the nearest railway station is at Cosham, 6 km away), but indications are that a junction would be constructed on the M275 to access to the new stadium and also facilitate development of the nearby Stamshaw area. A railway station at Wymering has also been proposed, but this would still be 3 km away from the proposed stadium. It was originally planned that the stadium would be funded by housing development on the island, but this proposal was dropped in favour of retail development, itself a matter contention because of the detrimental effect it would have on existing shopping facilities. Nevertheless, most fundamental problem remains the site's vulnerability to flooding. Less than 1 m above sea level, part of the site is already regularly inundated by sea water on spring tides. Moreover, in a study led by the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, sea levels are predicted to rise six metres by 2100 which, if correct, would see Horsea, like the Maldive Islands, submerged before 2040 .
Read more about this topic: Horsea Island
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