Architects are being invited to submit “sustainable” stadium plans in a competition to design a new ground for non-league English football club Forest Green Rovers.

The new stadium will be part of a £100m (US$142m, €124.9m) development – called Eco Park – which is a 100-acre sports and green technology business park which is being proposed for a site in Gloucestershire.

Forest Green Rovers owner and chair Dales Vince, who heads green energy company Ecotricity and is known for his environmental campaigning, said he was looking for “fan-focused stadium designs”.

“Sustainability will be key; we expect that to run through the core of the design, as through a stick of rock,” added Vince. “There are two aspects of sustainability – first, it’s about sustainable construction, in terms of the material used, and second, it’s about the long-term operational sustainability of the stadium.”

The competition will be held in three stages. After initial entries, judges will select a shortlist of eight designers who will be asked to produce concepts. Thereafter, the club will decide two finalists who will work up their ideas in further detail before a winner is chosen in September.

Entrants have until the end of April to submit their ideas, and stadium design expert Frank Whittle Partnership is overseeing the competition.

Vince added: “We’re starting with a blank sheet of paper. We’ve taken the sustainability concept as far as we could at the New Lawn, our current stadium, and we learned a lot at the same time about what’s possible in a retrofit situation – now we want to push the boundaries with a design from scratch.”

Sports facilities – including the new stadium, grass and all-weather training pitches and a sport science hub – will make up half of Eco Park, with the other half consisting of a green technology business park which could create up to 4,000 jobs. A nature reserve is also being planned for the plot.

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