Plans to build a new 20,000-seat stadium in the London Borough of Merton had been approved by the local council in 1988, but the club did not follow this up and the stadium was never built. A public park was later established on its planned site.Over the next decade, numerous options for a new stadium to be built in either the London Borough of Merton or elsewhere were explored, including a controversial plan to relocate to Dublin, in the Republic of Ireland, which emerged in 1995.