Chelmsford's ground-breaking turf track delayed until summer of 2021

Plans to make Chelmsford City racecourse the first floodlit grass venue in Britain have been hit by further issues that will delay the project until at least the summer of 2021.

Excavations for the mile round track, which lies inside the current all-weather circuit, commenced in the summer of 2018 but there have been complications preparing the surface.

Topsoil is now in place but officials at the track have yet to decide whether to turf or seed the track. Either way it will be a year in bedding in and after that the track will have to stage trials in order to be able to race which will push the opening fixtures into 2021. Chelmsford eventually hope to stage Breeders' Cup Trials at the track.

After initially turning down the project in March of last year, the BHA granted permission having received additional information from the track, which was inspected by various stakeholders.

Andy Waitt, clerk of the course at Chelmsford, said: "We had some hold ups with finishing off the ground works for the turf track in the summer including the weather.

"Thankfully, the topsoil is now down and everything is ready for the grass to be laid but there are a few things to sort out before we decide how to go about it.

"We will have to give it a good year to settle down which means we could have trials around March 2021 if all goes to plan. After that we could hope to be racing in the summer of that year."

There were no turf fixtures scheduled for 2020 at Chelmsford, with all of them planned to take place on the all-weather.

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