In detail
The stadium proposal, examined
The Embankment stadium has been promised for the best part of a decade, through changes of ownership, changes of council and changes of plan. Here is the full public record: what was promised, when, by whom, and what actually happened. Judge it for yourself.
Six years of the MoU. Zero planning applications.
Let's start where we always start: this partnership is not against Peterborough United, and not against a new stadium. A successful, well-housed Posh would be good for the city. Our objection is to the site, and to a proposal that has repeatedly failed to answer the basic questions any development of this scale must face.
The pattern below matters. The memorandum of understanding with the city council was signed in February 2020. In all the years since, through two sets of owners and a new mayoralty, no planning application for a stadium on the Embankment has ever been submitted. The people who arrived with the vision have left. The promises have changed shape each time they resurfaced. What has stayed constant is the one thing nobody proposing it controls: the Embankment is functional floodplain, hemmed in by a residential road, a university and a river.
The timeline
The Canadian investors arrive
Stewart Thompson and Dr Jason Neale buy a 50 percent share in Peterborough United from chairman Darragh MacAnthony through their company Kelgary Sports and Entertainment. They arrive with a vision of building a new stadium, and a move has been mooted ever since.
The memorandum of understanding
Embankment Properties and Peterborough City Council sign an MoU outlining a shared vision for a landmark development, naming the Embankment as a potential site. The club talks of a 15,000 to 22,500 all-seater arena in use over 200 days a year, hosting concerts, boxing and UFC. At one stage it is hoped the stadium could be ready for the start of the 2022/23 season.
Feasibility, and the first hard truth
A feasibility study is completed and published. The club is told it would need to apply for an exception to policy to build on the Embankment at all, because the site's protections point the other way. The club states it will wait until after the local elections before submitting a planning application. None follows.
The Embankment Masterplan
Following consultation, the council publishes an independent masterplan for the Embankment. It makes provision for a possible arena alongside the new ARU Peterborough campus, but its core vision is the Embankment as the city's premier public park, with better paths, facilities and riverside life. The park improvements remain largely undelivered.
The London Road buy-back
Through London Road Peterborough Properties Ltd, the owners buy the club's existing ground back from the council for £5.265 million, receiving a £1.25 million discount, with the stated long-term plan of funding the move partly through redeveloping the London Road site.
"About to" submit
Co-owner Jason Neale tells a podcast the club is about to submit a red-line application for the Embankment land. Club representatives meet the council's planning director and leader. No application is submitted.
The investors exit
Darragh MacAnthony buys back the majority of Kelgary's shares to become majority owner once again. The two investors who arrived with the stadium vision depart the club. London Road Peterborough Properties Ltd, the company formed to buy the ground back, is by this point in receivership over a reported unpaid debt.
The plans go quiet
With the co-owners gone, the stadium project takes a back seat. The Embankment remains reserved in planning limbo while the masterplan's park improvements stay on the shelf.
The Mayor revives it
Paul Bristow is elected Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough with an Embankment community stadium, now including a swimming pool and concert venue, as a focal campaign pledge. He says he can remove the planning question mark by including the stadium in a mayoral special development strategy, and that risk would be shared between the club and a public body. He meets the club in his first week in office. The club itself remains tight-lipped.
Still no application
More than six years on from the MoU, no planning application has been submitted, no business case has been published, and press investigations using freedom of information requests report continuing uncertainty over what, if anything, is progressing.
What the record shows
Individual delays happen to every big project. This is not that. Across eight years, the same four problems keep recurring, and none of them has ever been answered.
The finance has never been certain
The investors who arrived with the stadium vision left within six years. The company created to buy back London Road, the asset meant to help fund the move, ended up in receivership over a reported unpaid debt. The current version leans on a public body sharing the risk, with no published business case setting out who pays for construction, flood mitigation, or the pool and concert venue's running costs. Residents are entitled to ask: if the private money was ever really there, why has nothing been built?
The planning case has never been made
No application in over six years is not bad luck; it reflects how hard the site is. The club was told in 2021 it would need an exception to policy just to build here. The land is functional floodplain that the Environment Agency expects to be needed more, not less, through 2070 to 2125. Talk of a mayoral development strategy to remove the question mark is an admission that the proposal cannot succeed on the site's merits under normal planning rules.
The promises keep changing shape
Ready for the 2022/23 season. Then 15,000 to 22,500 seats. Then 19,400. Then a community stadium with a swimming pool and concert venue. Each version has surfaced around an election: the club waited until after the 2021 locals to apply, and the current revival was a mayoral campaign pledge. A project whose scope changes with the political calendar, rather than with a business case, is not a plan. It is a promise.
Meanwhile, the Embankment waits
The real casualty of eight years of maybe is the Embankment itself. The 2022 masterplan's vision of the city's premier public park, with cafes, toilets, lighting and a living riverfront, has sat undelivered while the land is held in reserve for a stadium that never arrives. Peterborough deserves better than a park kept deliberately unloved to make concreting it over feel like an upgrade.
Sources
Every claim on this page is drawn from the public record. Read the coverage yourself:
- Posh to push ahead with planning application after local elections Peterborough Telegraph, April 2021: the 2018 investment, the February 2020 MoU, and the decision to wait until after the elections.
- Embankment Stadium Peterborough United's own page: the MoU, the 15,000 to 22,500 all-seater vision, concerts, boxing and 200 days a year of use.
- Posh's vision for the Embankment in pictures Peterborough Telegraph, October 2021: the 19,400 capacity claim and the exception to policy requirement.
- Posh moving forward with arena plans Peterborough Telegraph, February 2023: the imminent red-line application that never came, and the £5.265m London Road buy-back with £1.25m discount.
- MacAnthony becomes majority owner again Peterborough Telegraph, December 2023: the Kelgary share buy-back and London Road Peterborough Properties Ltd in receivership over a reported unpaid debt.
- Bristow lays out his stadium pledge Peterborough Telegraph, April 2025: the campaign pledge, removing the planning question mark, and risk shared with a public body.
- Posh remain tight-lipped on stadium plans Peterborough Telegraph, May 2025: the co-owners' departures, plans taking a back seat, and the Mayor's first-week meeting.
- Six years on: where is Peterborough's Embankment stadium? CambsNews investigation, 2026: freedom of information responses deepen uncertainty over progress.