Portsmouth Football Club has had to find a new site for its proposed 36,000-seater stadium, because of “operational and security concerns” posed by its neighbour, the Royal Navy.

The Royal Navy has announced it intends to make its Portsmouth base the home for two new super aircraft carriers and several Type 45 destroyers.

The football club decided the original site chosen for its spectacular new stadium was too close for comfort and has now switched its attention to Horsea Island. The majority of the site is owned by the navy and the council and includes a large landfill.

Club chief executive, Peter Storrie, remained upbeat about the inconvenience, stressing that the new site still fits all the criteria and should open in 2011, as planned.

“We have always had a very good working relationship with the Royal Navy and once the new commissions were confirmed the Navy and the city council encouraged and worked with us in identifying another waterfront site,” he said. “With a fair wind we would like to start work on building the stadium around this time next year.”

Architects, Herzog & Meuron – designers of the Beijing National Stadium - are having to rework the designs slightly, but it is hoped a planning application will be submitted by early summer next year. Plans will still include 1,500 new homes, as well as access roads.

The council has confirmed it is supportive of the proposals. Leader of Portsmouth City Council, Gerald Vernon-Jackson, says: “The usual processes, such as the planning application, will have to take their normal independent path, but we will do what we can to facilitate this scheme.”

However, Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust and Portsmouth Historic Dockyard will welcome the move, since they criticised the original plans, fearing a stadium wouldn’t properly regenerate the area, would cause traffic congestion and overshadow the historic dockyard.