Newcastle United have reportedly touched base with Populous, the designers of Tottenham Hotspur's £1.2billion stadium with their own grand plans to redevelop St. James' Park. That's according to Mark Douglas of the i, who claims the Magpies are keen on pushing on with increasing the capacity of their home to in excess of 60,000.

Eddie Howe's side have sold out every home game this season, with success on the pitch leading to more clamour for tickets off it, and Populous managing director Christopher Lee - who has already worked with PIF on a number of projects in Saudi Arabia - says he would "bite your hand off" to be involved with a project like St. James' Park. It's worth noting the Magpies have not made a call yet relating to the stadium expansion, with a number of other parties likely to bee keen.

“In my career I’ve had a few jobs where people think it’s impossible,” Lee told the i. “The Emirates was built on a trainline, [the site] is a triangle with no access. We thought that was difficult but it feels like every consecutive job after that gets more and more difficult.

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“The Aviva stadium in Dublin reminds me of the potential St James’ Park redevelopment. They also didn’t want to move, it had 52,000 capacity but it was a predominantly standing stadium. They wanted 52,000 and a predominantly seating stadium on the same site but there were issues to overcome.

“There were heritage buildings north and south which are grade one listed and in Ireland the right to light [for those buildings] is unalienable. Elsewhere you can buy to compensate but not in Ireland.

“So what we did there was we mapped in three dimensions, we call it building information models where you get all this information into a report. You then end up with an envelope within which you can then design.

“I guess that’s how I would start with St James’ Park. You’ve got Leazes Terrace which is Grade 1-listed and sitting within a conservation area. The right to light will be a massive part of that as well as the contextual and historical setting. That’s the difficult bit.

“They’ve bought Strawberry Place now, which is good land for redevelopment too. Although again that has a Metro under it which again makes it that bit more complicated. If it were me, I’d start by mapping all those bits and trying to create some kind of workable envelope and see what you could get in terms of the capacity you want and the shape you want that would get approval.”

You can read the full interview about how Populous would go about redeveloping St James' Park in the i, here.