Newbury Town’s Faraday Road ground could be in line for a £1.25 million upgrade courtesy of West Berkshire Council, the BBC has reported.

The council hopes to replace the grass surface at the ground which hosts the Thames Valley Premier League side with a synthetic surface, commonly known as a ‘3G pitch’.

A BBC News report by Nathan Briant says: “West Berkshire Council wants to replace the current playing surface at Faraday Road in Newbury with the 3G pitch in a proposal it hopes will generate £70,000 profit a year. Football returned to the ground in November 2023 after a complex there was destroyed by a fire in August 2021.

“A public consultation on the plan to replace the pitch and to build floodlighting and fencing at the site will end on Friday, ahead of potential planning permission being granted.”

BBC archive: Former Newbury Football Club Faraday Road site destroyed by fire

The move is the latest attempt in a long line of plans to rejuvenate football in Berkshire’s sixth largest town, and largest in the West Berkshire catchment – but the council’s focus on the ground should be no surprise, it was the number one manifesto priority of the Liberal Democrat administration at the 2023 Election.

The ground itself re-opened to football in 2023 with Newbury Town FC returning in November 2024. In the summer the club themselves announced a ‘new era’, rebranding to a red and white kit and adding the ‘Town’ suffix back in the teams name.

There have been significant efforts to rejuvenate senior football in the town, all the way back to 1995 when the original Newbury Town was dissolved following a financial crisis.

Most recently, West Berkshire Council had intended to build industrial units on Faraday Road having evicted the club and all teams in 2018. The plan was to move the sporting provision to Monks Lane and a shared facility with Newbury Rugby Club who were already incumbent on site.

New teams, new names and displacement from the club’s traditional Faraday Road home are the story of the last 30 years, but it is a club with history and some big name former players including ex-Celtic and Leicester City boss Brendan Rodgers, former Blackburn Rovers manager Steve Kean, the former Reading and Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Stuart Beavon as well as ex-Portsmouth striker Guy Whittingham.

In the summer of 2025, Football in Berkshire reported new Chairman and former manager Danny Langford as saying in a vision statement released by the club after a season of struggle in the TVPL: “We want to return a proper match-day experience at Faraday Road.

“We have amazing support locally and we want to make sure our supporters have a great experience both on and off the pitch this season.”

From the council’s point of view, the authority believe that: “the project, once approved, offers excellent outcomes…and has the power to contribute positively to vital social and health priorities.”