Cancer Centre Approved for Headingley Stadium

Leeds City Council has approved plans for private provider Icon to open a radiotherapy and oncology imaging centre in the stadium’s rugby stand

A cancer treatment centre has been approved for Headingley Stadium, in an unusual reuse of space at the home of Leeds Rhinos and Yorkshire cricket. Leeds City Council has granted planning permission for cancer care specialist Icon Group to convert vacant former university classrooms in the ground’s rugby stand into a radiotherapy and oncology imaging facility. The Icon Cancer Centre will occupy the ground, first and second floors, offering radiotherapy and advanced scanning. Icon says it will house radiotherapy technology it describes as a first of its kind in the North of England.

Why This Matters For Leeds

This is private investment bringing a genuinely new medical capability to Leeds. It represents inward investment by a global operator, new specialist jobs, and a productive reuse of empty space at a landmark venue. For patients, the promise is faster, closer access to treatment. For the wider economy, it reinforces Leeds’ growing reputation as a centre for health innovation, adding a clinical investment dimension to a health-tech sector the region is actively promoting.

What Is Planned at Headingley Stadium

The centre will be run by Icon Group, described as Australia’s largest dedicated cancer care provider, which has expanded internationally into Asia, New Zealand and the UK. It will offer radiotherapy and advanced oncology imaging, including PET-CT scanning, operating Monday to Friday from the rugby stand’s lower three floors, a space previously used as classrooms by Leeds Beckett University and, more recently, a language school. Icon says the facility will feature radiotherapy technology that is a first of its kind in the North of England and only the second such installation in the UK, after its London centre. The council’s planning report noted the scheme involves no external alterations to the listed-quality stadium and praised its transport links, with Headingley and Burley stations nearby. The centre is designed to sit within a wider health and wellbeing offering at the ground.

“There are people often waiting months to access radiotherapy. We want to be part of the solution.”

— Mark Middleton, Chief Executive, Icon Group

Health Investment Meets a Leeds Landmark

The project has been shaped with local partners, including the stadium operator, Leeds Rhinos, Headingley cricket and the council, and Icon has appointed Dame Linda Pollard, former chair of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, as a strategic advisor. The need is real: the Leeds Cancer Programme, a partnership including Macmillan, the NHS and the council, says around 27,000 people in the city are living with or beyond cancer, with more than 4,100 new diagnoses each year. As a private provider, Icon will operate alongside NHS services rather than as part of them, but the aim is to widen access and cut waiting times. It also adds to the run of health investment landing in the city, from the West Yorkshire healthtech cluster to global pathology deals.