The stadium was due to cost the club £3 million and was approved in October 2003 by local council members, despite much local opposition due to the controversial siting of the development on school playing fields. Work started on the stadium on 3 May 2005. The new ground has facilities to house 230 car parking places, 3 coach parking places, a capacity of 5,147 and two seated stands - the main stand and another seated stand. The stadium also has a leisure club, gym, sauna, conference and meeting facilities as well as a pub and many other facilities. The stadium is used seven days a week for different events. The closest railway station to the stadium is
Stroud. The stadium was first used in a pre season friendly against
Swindon Town in July 2006 and was officially opened in September 2006 when the
England C team played a friendly fixture against Forest Green. For the 2007–08 season
Gloucester City shared the ground due to serious flooding at their home stadium. They have since returned to the city of Gloucester following spells at
Cirencester Town,
Cheltenham Town and
Evesham United. In April 2009, The New Lawn hosted the
Conference League Cup final between Forest Green and
AFC Telford United in which Telford won the game 0-3 on penalty kicks following the 90 minutes finishing goalless. The match was shown live on
Setanta Sports. In December 2009 the ground was selected as part of the city of Bristol's 2018
FIFA World Cup bid to act as a training ground facility. In June 2011, work began on the pitch at the stadium to make it the first organic football pitch in the world. This was then followed in December 2011 by the installation of 180 solar panels to the EESI stand to help the club generate its own electricity. In April 2012, the club introduced the first solar powered robotic lawn mower to be used on a football pitch in British football. The Etesia robot mower - known as a 'mow bot' - uses GPS technology to automatically guide it round the pitch without the need for human intervention. In August 2012, a
Manchester United XI played a pre-season friendly at the ground in aid of the Sustainability in Sport foundation which was created by Forest Green chairman
Dale Vince and
Gary Neville. On 25 August 2014, a
BT Sport televised
Conference National derby game with
Bristol Rovers saw 3,781 in attendance, the highest ever recorded league attendance at the stadium. The record was subsequently broken a number of times, with the current record being 4,788 for a
EFL League One match against Bristol Rovers on 11 March 2023. The record attendance in all competitions is 4,836 for a
FA Cup Third Round 4-3 defeat to
Derby County on 3 January 2009. The stadium hosted what is believed to be the world's first ever vegan football match on 1 November 2014 in a Conference National game against
Lincoln City. The match received support from
Paul and
Stella McCartney. ==Environmental features==